City student goes missing in Newzealand

Hyderbad, October 10 : Mystery shrouds the disappearence of a city student in New Zealand over the past nine days. The youngster left home for his college but has not returned since then giving sleepless nights to his family members back here. The family is worried in view of the recent spate of racial attacks on Indians in Australia. T

he family members have been asking the State and the Central governments to bring pressure on authorities in New Zealand to trace their missing son.

Twenty-three-year-old Srikanth Rayadurgam, left for New Zealand on February 13 this year to pursue his studies. He completed his hotel management course from Indian Institute of Culinary Arts at Begumpet in the city.

Srikanth joined an advanced diploma course in hotel management in the AUT University at Auckland and was staying with his sister, R Padma Priya, and brother-in-law, Nagesh Babu, who live there.

“On October 1 at around 1 pm, Srikanth left home for his college but did not return,” Chakrapani Rayadurgam, father of Srikanth said. Chakrapani is a retired employee and resident of Mettuguda in Secunderabad.

Srikanth has neither contacted his sister and brother-in-law there nor his parents back home.

“Srikanth spoke to us on September 29 for the last time. He was doing well there and there were no problems for him there,” the boy’s mother, Rajeshwari, a homemaker said.

“A cyclist found Srikanth’s wallet, mobile phone, college bag and one of his shoes near the West Hamin Marina on October 2. With the help of the phone numbers in the wallet, the cyclist contacted our daughter,’’ Rajeshwari said.

“There were, however, only 10 dollars in the wallet found by the cyclist,” Rajeshwari said. Srikanth’s brother-in-law registered a missing case with the Avondale police in New Zealand but till date his whereabouts are not known.

The police there launched a search in the sea near the West Hamin Marina but in vain.

“The local newspapers suspect it (the mysterious missing) to be a racist attack on yet another Indian and we are worried,’’ the parents said.

–Agencies