UC Berkeley Indian Student Saketh Sreenivasaiah Found Dead in Lake Anza After Five-Day Search
The Berkeley Indian community grieved this week as the body of Saketh Sreenivasaiah, a 22-year-old Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering master's student from Karnataka, India, was recovered from Lake Anza after a multi-day search, with the Consulate General of India in San Francisco intervening on behalf of his family. Multiple South Asian and Asian American media outlets tracked the tragedy, and his roommate's account of warning signs sparked a wider conversation about mental health among international students. Separately, BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha's campus fellowship marked Diwali for Bay Area Indian students at its San Jose center.
Body of IIT-Madras Alumnus Saketh Sreenivasaiah Recovered from Lake Anza
The American Bazaar reported on February 15, 2026, that the body of Saketh Sreenivasaiah, a 22-year-old Indian international student enrolled in UC Berkeley's Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering master's program, was recovered from Lake Anza at Tilden Regional Park. Sreenivasaiah had been reported missing on February 12, with Berkeley Police noting he was last seen on February 10 in the 1700 block of Dwight Way, near McGee Avenue. He had previously completed his undergraduate degree at the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras, one of India's premier engineering institutions, before enrolling at Berkeley to pursue graduate study. His backpack, containing his passport and laptop, was found on a doorstep in the Park Hills neighborhood near Tilden Regional Park — a detail that intensified concerns during the search. On February 14, dive teams from the Alameda County Sheriff's Office recovered his body from Lake Anza, approximately a 12-minute drive from campus. The Contra Costa County Coroner's Office confirmed his identity on February 16. Berkeley Police had reported that Sreenivasaiah was reportedly distressed over a personal relationship at the time of his disappearance and had asked the community for assistance in locating him. His death drew profound grief from the Indian American community in the Bay Area and prompted widespread coverage across South Asian diaspora media outlets in the United States and internationally. [3]
🤝 India Consulate San Francisco Steps In as Five-Day Search Continues
WION reported on February 14, 2026, that the search for UC Berkeley student Saketh Sreenivasaiah had entered its fifth day without resolution, as the Consulate General of India in San Francisco formally stepped in to express deep concern and coordinate with local authorities. The consulate issued a statement on X, the social media platform: "Consulate General of India in San Francisco is deeply concerned about the disappearance of Saketh Sreenivasaiah, an Indian post-graduate student of UC Berkeley, hailing from the State of Karnataka. The Consulate is in touch with the family and also is in contact with the concerned local authorities to locate the student." The 22-year-old had last been seen approximately a kilometer from campus on February 10. Berkeley Police described Sreenivasaiah as six feet one inch tall, weighing about 160 pounds, with short black hair and brown eyes. His disappearance near Lake Anza — an East Bay reservoir set within Tilden Regional Park — prompted search operations involving both the Berkeley Police Department and the East Bay Regional Park District in coordinated efforts. WION's coverage brought the case to a global South Asian television audience, particularly those tracking the welfare and safety of Indian students studying in the United States, where concerns about student safety have grown amid a series of high-profile incidents involving Indian international students in recent years. [7]
Roommate's Account and Mental Health Crisis Among AAPI Students
NextShark's coverage of Saketh Sreenivasaiah's death shed light on the personal circumstances of his final weeks and ignited a wider conversation about mental health in the South Asian and Asian American community. Sreenivasaiah's roommate, Baneet Singh, wrote on LinkedIn that in the two weeks before Saketh went missing, he had "started eating less and engaging less, only surviving on chips and cookies" — warning signs Singh said he missed at the time. Singh recalled a final exchange in which 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 had taken the remark as typical silliness; looking back, he reflected, "The opposite of life was never death. It was indifference." Singh called life as an international student "tough" and said he was working with authorities to help bring Sreenivasaiah's family from India to the US on an emergency visa. NextShark placed the tragedy in a broader statistical context: citing a 2024 study, the outlet noted that suicide is now the leading cause of death among AAPI youth, with rates doubling between 1999 and 2021 and claiming 4,747 lives, while AAPI individuals remain among the least likely groups to seek professional mental health help. The story underscored the unique isolation and pressure faced by Indian international students far from their support networks. [6]
🪔 BAPS Campus Fellowship Marks Diwali for Bay Area Students
BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha's campus fellowship organized a Diwali celebration at its San Jose facility for 2025, drawing college students from the wider Bay Area including UC Berkeley, as documented on the BAPS organization's global website. BAPS — the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Sanstha, a global Swaminarayan Hindu organization with Gujarati roots — has developed an active campus fellowship program that targets Indian and South Asian university students across American campuses, offering them a cultural and spiritual community far from home. The San Jose BAPS center serves the Bay Area's Gujarati Hindu community and hosts regular satsang assemblies, youth programs, and seasonal celebrations tied to the Hindu calendar. Diwali, the festival of lights, is one of the most significant occasions on the BAPS calendar, and the campus fellowship Diwali event was designed specifically to give students a structured, communal way to observe the holiday. For Indian international students at institutions like UC Berkeley, Stanford, San Jose State, and other Bay Area universities, such BAPS events provide important cultural continuity and connection to community networks beyond the university campus. The BAPS global network spans North America, the UK, Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa, and the Middle East, making it one of the most organized and geographically extensive Hindu diaspora organizations in the world, with its campus fellowship programs providing a consistent point of community contact for students wherever they study. [2]
Sources: [3] The American Bazaar · [7] WION · [6] nextshark.com · [2] BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha