UC Berkeley Mourns Saketh Sreenivasaiah, Karnataka Graduate Student Found Dead in Lake Anza
The South Asian academic community is mourning Saketh Sreenivasaiah, a 22-year-old graduate student from Karnataka, India, who was found dead in Lake Anza at Tilden Regional Park on February 14, nearly five days after he was reported missing from the UC Berkeley campus. A master's student in chemical and biomolecular engineering with an undergraduate degree from IIT Madras, Sreenivasaiah's death has stirred deep grief and renewed attention on the mental health challenges facing South Asian international students in the United States.
Indian Consulate Responds as Berkeley Police Search Lake Anza
The Consulate General of India in San Francisco mobilised swiftly after Saketh Sreenivasaiah was reported missing from campus. In a statement on social media, 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 the State of Karnataka,' adding that it was in contact with both his family in India and US local authorities. Berkeley Police said Sreenivasaiah was last seen on February 10 on the 1700 block of Dwight Way near McGee Avenue, approximately one kilometre from campus. His backpack — containing his passport and laptop — was found on a doorstep in the Park Hills neighbourhood adjacent to Tilden Regional Park. Berkeley Police coordinated with the East Bay Regional Park District on search operations near Lake Anza. Sreenivasaiah was described as six feet one inch tall, 160 pounds, with short black hair and brown eyes, and police urged anyone with information to contact local law enforcement. He had been pursuing his master's degree in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, having completed his undergraduate studies at the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras, one of India's most prestigious technical institutions. The Consulate confirmed it was working to support his family through this deeply difficult time. [3]
Roommate's Account and the Weight of International Student Mental Health
Nextshark published a deeply reported account of Sreenivasaiah's final weeks drawn from a LinkedIn post written by his roommate, Baneet Singh, which was widely shared across South Asian communities online. Singh wrote that in the two weeks before Sreenivasaiah went missing, he had 'started eating less and engaging less, only surviving on chips and cookies' — warning signs Singh says he did not recognise at the time. Singh recalled their last exchange: Sreenivasaiah came home 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 took it as lighthearted banter. 'The opposite of life was never death. It was indifference,' Singh later wrote. 'I didn't expect this from a friend who lived, ate, travelled, laughed and joked with me.' Singh worked with authorities to arrange emergency visas for Sreenivasaiah's family to travel from India to the United States. Sreenivasaiah's death arrives against a documented backdrop of mental health struggles in South Asian and AAPI communities. A 2024 study cited by Nextshark found that suicide has become the leading cause of death among AAPI youth, with rates doubling between 1999 and 2021. Despite this, South Asians remain among the least likely groups in the US to seek mental health support, a gap attributed to cultural stigma and a shortage of culturally competent resources. [5]
Body Recovered from Lake Anza; Diaspora Community Calls for Greater Support
Dive teams from the Alameda County Sheriff's Office recovered Sreenivasaiah's body from Lake Anza at Tilden Regional Park on February 14. The Contra Costa County Coroner's Office formally confirmed his identity on February 16. Coverage of the tragedy spread rapidly across Indian diaspora media, appearing in The American Bazaar, NDTV, Gulf News, WION, PGurus and others within days — reflecting the degree to which this story resonated across South Asian communities worldwide. The Consulate General of India in San Francisco confirmed it would assist in repatriating his remains to his family in Karnataka. For Berkeley's Indian and South Asian community, Sreenivasaiah's loss has become a catalyst for conversation about the pressures accompanying the path of an international graduate student: the expectation of academic excellence, the distance from family, the unfamiliarity of a new country and culture, and the deeply rooted cultural reluctance to discuss mental health openly. Resources including UC Berkeley's Tang Center, the university counselling services, and national organisations like the South Asian Mental Health Initiative are available to those who are struggling. The community has urged students across US campuses to watch for warning signs, reach out to isolated classmates, and seek help without stigma. [2]
Sources: [3] Gulf News · [5] nextshark.com · [2] The American Bazaar