Potharaju Venkata Sarath Kumar, 35-year-old software engineer from Guntur who has been missing since March 31 from Washington D.C, was found dead by the United States Park Police (USPP).
His body was reportedly traced at Tidal Basin situated very close to the FDR Memorial on Thursday night, but the bereaved family is in a state of disbelief even as friends and relatives made frantic calls to find if that’s the truth. The reality slowly dawned on them, that their son is no more.
Sarath Kumar’s parents -- Venkata Krishna Murthy, a retired assistant commercial tax officer, and Radha -- are at loss of words as the shocking news came from their close relatives in the U.S. who were following the investigation.
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They have been spending sleepless nights in their own house at A.T. Agraharam since the moment they were told that their son had been missing from March 31 evening, a few hours after contacts with him got snapped.
Sarath Kumar, a software engineer employed with the TCS, went for a local tour of Washington D.C along with the family of his cousin P. Srinivas and some relatives and was reported by those accompanying him as missing from the FDR Memorial area.
Sarath Kumar’s wife Manjula was not with him.
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There has since been no breakthrough in the investigation by the USPP. However, the police found an unidentified body of a man in the Tidal Basin and ascertained that it belonged to that of Sarath Kumar. Speaking to The Hindu , Mr. Krishna Murthy said his son used to be in regular touch wherever he went in the U.S.
He was a resident of Chicago and was on a project work in Washington D.C from where he left for a tour. He came to Guntur for a marriage six months ago and last spoke to his parents the same day before he went missing under mysterious circumstances. Visibly disturbed by the tragic incident, Mr. Krishna Murthy said: “My son was a brilliant engineer specialising in mobile testing tools and did Masters in Science from Grenoble University in France. He aspired for a job in the World Bank and was almost there. But fate had something else in store for him.”