Berkeley: Indian Graduate Student Saketh Sreenivasaiah Found Dead at Lake Anza

Saketh Sreenivasaiah, a 22-year-old Indian international student in the master's program in chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, was reported missing on February 12 and his body was recovered from Lake Anza at Tilden Regional Park on February 14. His death, which came after warning signs that those close to him say they did not fully recognize, has cast a quiet grief over his family, friends, and the broader Indian student community at Berkeley.

A Missing Person Search Ends in Tragedy at Lake Anza

Saketh Sreenivasaiah, a native of Karnataka, India, had earned his undergraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras before enrolling in the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering master's program at UC Berkeley. He was reported missing on February 12. Berkeley police said he had last been seen on February 10 on the 1700 block of Dwight Way near McGee Avenue, not far from campus. Authorities issued a public description: six feet one inch tall, approximately 160 pounds, with short black hair and brown eyes. A significant early finding was the discovery of his backpack, containing his passport and laptop, left on a doorstep in the Park Hills neighbourhood adjacent to Tilden Regional Park. Berkeley Police coordinated with the East Bay Regional Park District to conduct search operations near Lake Anza, a body of water roughly twelve minutes by road from campus. Police said Sreenivasaiah had been distressed over a relationship at the time of his disappearance. Alameda County Sheriff's Office dive teams recovered his body from Lake Anza on February 14. The Contra Costa County Coroner's Office formally confirmed his identity on February 16. The Consulate General of India in San Francisco publicly expressed deep concern and confirmed it was in contact with his family in India as well as with local law enforcement, actively coordinating on the family's behalf throughout the search and in its aftermath. [2]

Roommate Recalls the Signs He Wishes He Had Seen in Time

Saketh Sreenivasaiah's roommate, Baneet Singh, wrote on LinkedIn about the weeks before the disappearance in a reflection that many in the South Asian student community found both painful and honest. Singh noted that in the two weeks before Sreenivasaiah went missing, he had started eating less and engaging less, surviving largely on chips and cookies. Their last conversation remains vivid for Singh. Sreenivasaiah returned from class wearing a red bathrobe and told him, in words Singh has since replayed many times: "I've stopped caring, man. I'm cold and don't care what anyone thinks of me. I don't care about anything." Singh took it at the time as the kind of casual, slightly absurd remark that friends exchange without weight. Looking back, he wrote, he sees it differently. "The opposite of life was never death. It was indifference," he reflected. He also wrote: "I didn't expect this from a friend who lived, ate, travelled, laughed and joked with me." Singh, who described life as an international student as tough, was working with U.S. authorities to help Sreenivasaiah's family travel from India on an emergency visa. The case has drawn wider attention to mental health strain in South Asian and Asian American communities. A 2024 study found that suicide has become the leading cause of death among AAPI youth, with rates doubling between 1999 and 2021 and claiming 4,747 lives, even as AAPI individuals remain among the least likely to seek professional help. [4]

Sources: [2] The American Bazaar · [4] nextshark.com