Video shows additional people on Punta Cana beach when U.S. student went missing, sources say

Civil defence boats search for Sudiksha Konanki, a university student from the US who disappeared on a beach in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, on Monday. (Francesco Spotorno/AP via CNN Newsource)

New information has revealed that other people were on the beach when US college student Sudiksha Konanki went missing in the Dominican Republic, law enforcement officials assisting with the investigation told CNN, as the search goes into its seventh day.

The 20-year-old University of Pittsburgh student vanished at the beach of the Riu República Hotel in Punta Cana early on March 6, sparking a frantic search by air, sea and land, involving authorities from the United States, the Dominican Republic and India, where Konanki’s family is originally from.

“This is one of the largest operations we have carried out for the rescue of a person,” Agustín Morillo Rodríguez, general commander of the Dominican Republic Navy, told CNN on Wednesday.

Video evidence points to additional people being on the beach around the time Konanki went missing, beyond a young man who’d told police he’d been with her there, the law enforcement officials assisting with the probe said. Investigators are trying to identify these people while asking that they come forward with any information about Konanki.

CNN has not seen the footage.

Because other people were around the beach early on March 6, without discovering a body authorities must allow for the possibility Konanki may have encountered one or more of them.

Dominican officials had previously said they were investigating Konanki’s disappearance as a drowning. But the general prosecutor’s office said Wednesday officials are also investigating whether Konanki’s disappearance could extend “beyond a possible accidental event.”

Konanki, who is from Loudoun County, Virginia, traveled to Punta Cana with five female friends from her school. The women had been drinking in the hotel’s lobby early on March 6 before surveillance cameras captured them entering the hotel beach along with two men around 4:15 a.m., according to a law enforcement source and police statements.

Cameras later captured five women and one man leaving the beach around 4:55 a.m. – but Konanki appears to have stayed behind with a man in his 20s, sources told CNN. The surveillance cameras recorded the man leaving the beach just before 9 a.m., but Konanki was nowhere to be seen.

Konanki’s sarong-style cover-up was found on a lounge chair on the beach, but there were no signs of violence, a source familiar with the investigation told CNN.

In his interviews with police, the young man, who is the last known person to have been with Konanki before she vanished, recalled going in the water, feeling ill, coming out of the water and lying down on the beach, while seeing Konanki still standing about ankle deep in the sea, multiple law enforcement officials assisting with the investigation told CNN. The man’s next recollection was waking up and leaving the beach hours later, they said.

The man is cooperating with the investigation, and police are not considering him a suspect.

The night Konanki disappeared, sea conditions were dangerous with high waves, Rodríguez said.

Konanki’s disappearance comes nearly two months after four tourists drowned in Punta Cana at the same beach where Konanki was last seen, according to the Dominican Republic’s civil defense agency. Strong currents swept the tourists off the Arena Gorda beach, where the Riu República Hotel is located, the civil defense agency said on January 18 in a Facebook post.

On Wednesday, the country’s general prosecutor, Yeni Berenice Reynoso, said investigators were “applying a holistic investigation protocol that examines all variables” in Konanki’s disappearance, “as with any disappearance under the circumstances of the case at hand.”

The Dominican Republic Navy has deployed divers to search along the coast about 24 nautical miles from the hotel where Konanki was reported missing, Rodríguez said. Authorities are searching along the coast because they believe if the student drowned, her body would be pushed away from the sea into the coast or the coral reefs.

“The navy is deploying marines who are walking along the beaches and all nearby places searching for the missing young woman,” Rodríguez said. “Likewise, the air force is using two, and at times three, helicopters that are supporting the civil defense as well.”

The search and rescue operation could last anywhere from three to seven days, he said.

Konanki’s family and Loudoun County Sheriff Mike Chapman have urged authorities to consider all possible avenues.

Konanki’s parents, Subbarayudu and Sreedevi Konanki, returned to Virginia this week after flying to Punta Cana with two family friends, according to Chapman. Subbarayudu, Konanki’s father, has asked authorities to widen the investigation.

The father’s formal request notes that the student’s belongings, including her phone and wallet, were left with her friends, “which is unusual because she always carried her phone with her,” he wrote in the report, according to radio station WTOP, as reported by the AP. It’s unclear where this information came from.

Subbarayudu told CNN earlier he wants local authorities “to also investigate other possibilities including whether this is a case of kidnapping or human trafficking.”

CNN’s Chris Boyette and Rebekah Riess contributed to this report

Article written by John Miller and Lex Harvey, CNN