A major effort of the authorities to find 20-year old Indian tourist Sudiksha Konanki who was last seen after 4:15am on Thursday, 6 March 2025 when walking on the beach of the Riu Republica Resort in Punta Cana. She was last seen wearing a two-piece bikini. A pre-med student at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania and a legal resident in the state of Virginia, she had traveled to the Dominican Republic with five girlfriends on 3 March 2025 to celebrate the traditional university spring break.
The hotel, local authorities and the embassies of India and the United States have been active in the case. As reported, the area was patrolled with helicopters, divers, boats, drones, canine units and staff with no sightings by the Air Force, Navy, Civil Defense, firefighters and hotel staff.
The girlfriends reported Konanki as missing the next day when she did not return to her room. A Police report says that while her girlfriends went back to their rooms, she had stayed at the beach with a fellow hotel guest Joshua Steven Ribe, who has been collaborating with the authorities. As reported in Diario Libre, he had explained they were in the beach waters when a wave engulfed them and he was able to get out, but it would have been more than the young woman could handle and she would have drowned.
A report in Noticias SIN says security camera footage showed the group of seven drinking in the lobby until 3am on Thursday, 6 March and then walking to the beach at around 4:50am.
According to the Noticias SIN source, security footage would show that at 5:55am, five women (20-year old Raman Nithya Venkat, 20-year old Chilakamarri Ananya, 21-year old Shaleen Mangesh Bordawekar, 22-year old Shivani Viswanathan and 22-year old Komal Karim Chranya), and one man, 22-year old Carter Johnson, would return to the hotel, leaving behind 20-year old Konanki and 24-year old Ribe. Ribe explained that both entered the sea waters when they were engulfed by a wave, but he got out, vomited and fell asleep on the sand. He said when he got out of the water, he thought the young woman had done so, too.
Security footage shows Ribe leaving the beach to return to his accommodation at 9:55am without Konanki.
No charges have been pressed by the Dominican authorities in this tragic case of a spring break vacation gone wrong.
Read more:
Noticias SIN
Diario Libre
Listin Diario
El Dia
10 March 2025