Berkeley: Six Months On, Indian Student Community Still Reflects on Death of UC Berkeley Postgrad Saketh Sreenivasaiah
Half a year after his body was recovered from Lake Anza in Tilden Regional Park, the death of Saketh Sreenivasaiah — the 22-year-old University of California, Berkeley postgraduate from Karnataka — remains a reference point for Berkeley's Indian student community and for Indian media covering student welfare in the United States. Two of the earliest and most-cited pieces of reporting on the case, from Gulf News and NextShark, still frame how most Indian readers first encountered the story.
Consulate General of India Voiced 'Deep Concern' as Berkeley Search Unfolded
The Consulate General of India in San Francisco publicly voiced deep concern in mid-February for Saketh Sreenivasaiah, a 22-year-old Indian postgraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley who had gone missing days earlier. In a post on X, the Consulate said it was 'deeply concerned about the disappearance of Saketh Sreenivasaiah, an Indian post-graduate student of University of California, Berkeley, hailing from Karnataka,' and confirmed it was 'in touch with the family and also is in contact with the concerned local authorities.' Sreenivasaiah, according to Gulf News, was pursuing his Master's in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Berkeley and had previously earned his undergraduate degree at an Indian Institute of Technology. Berkeley Police told the outlet a search was underway near Lake Anza for the missing student, who had last been seen the previous Tuesday on the 1700 block of Dwight Way, near McGee Avenue. Officers reported he was 'upset about a relationship' at the time. His backpack, containing his passport and laptop, was found on a doorstep in the Park Hills neighbourhood next to Tilden Regional Park. The Berkeley Police Department said it was coordinating ongoing search efforts with the East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) and appealed to the public for information about the student, whom officers described as six feet one, roughly 160 pounds, with short black hair and brown eyes. [3]
Roommate's Account and a Wider Reckoning on AAPI Youth Mental Health
NextShark's Feb. 20, 2026 follow-up documented what happened next: Alameda County Sheriff's Office dive teams recovered Sreenivasaiah's body from Lake Anza in Tilden Regional Park on Feb. 14, about a 12-minute drive from campus, and the Contra Costa County Coroner's Office confirmed his identity two days later. The 22-year-old was a native of Karnataka who had completed his undergraduate degree at the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras before starting Berkeley's chemical and biomolecular engineering master's program, and had been reported missing on Feb. 12. NextShark also reported that his roommate, Baneet Singh, wrote on LinkedIn that in the two weeks before Sreenivasaiah went missing he had 'started eating less and engaging less, only surviving on chips and cookies' — signals Singh said he had missed at the time. Singh recalled their last exchange, when Sreenivasaiah returned from class in a red bathrobe and said, 'I've stopped caring, man. I'm cold and don't care what anyone thinks of me. I don't care about anything.' Singh wrote afterward, 'the opposite of life was never death. It was indifference,' called international-student life 'tough,' and said he was working with authorities to arrange an emergency visa for the family's travel from India. NextShark tied the case to a 2024 study showing suicide is now the leading cause of death among AAPI youth, with rates having doubled between 1999 and 2021 and claiming 4,747 lives — a gap researchers attribute to cultural stigma and limited culturally competent care. [5]
Sources: [3] Gulf News · [5] nextshark.com