Dey is pursuing a doctoral program at University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: Two weeks after a University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) student from India disappeared, law enforcement officials have suspended the search for her body amidst heavy rains and high waters.
According to Omaha.com, 30-year-old Anwesha Dey was last seen on May 3 when she left a friend’s house near 23rd and S Streets en route to UNL’s downtown campus to grade student papers, police reported in a search warrant.
Police Chief Jim Peschong previously informed the Nebraska News Network that a local business provided surveillance footage that shows the Indian doctorate student of biological sciences falling into Antelope Creek, where she was swept away in the night.
“The video shows her struggling in the water as she’s attempting to regain her footing and trying to get to the shore, although the water seemed to be moving too fast and it appears as though it carried her away,” Peschong told reporters during a public press conference.
Friends who viewed at the video said they think the woman on the video is Dey, and much to their dismay her family informed investigators she did not know how to swim, according to local ABC affiliate KLKN-TV.
Between Dey’s disappearance and the official declaration of her status as a missing person on May 6, police learned Dey never turned in grades for her students, which colleagues and friends said was uncharacteristic of the woman they say was committed to her academic career, per the Lincoln Journal Star.
Peschong told the Nebraska Radio Network that he can only speculate why Dey thought she could cross the creek even though the water was up.
“Maybe the water doesn’t look like its moving so fast, because it’s not rippling over anything,” Peschong stated. “Ultimately, you reach the edge of the walkway and then you go down into the little trough that the water normally goes in and she loses her footing.”
Police are now asking citizens with property along Salt Creek from Antelope Creek to the Platte River to keep an eye out for a body or Dey’s belongings, disclosed LJS. Dey was reportedly wearing an orange hooded jacket and blue jeans and was carrying a gray-and-orange backpack with a light blue umbrella the night of her disappearance.