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Indian grad student found dead

A 25-year-old Indian graduate student at the Blekinge Institute of Technology who was reported missing in late January, has been found dead in Ronneby harbour.

Published: 14 April 2012 10:28 CEST

The body was found in the watery grave two weeks ago, but the identification process was completed only on Friday, according to the local Blekinge Läns Tidning daily.

Blekinge police have confirmed that they don’t suspect any crime in connection with the disappearance of Dheeraj Reddy Donthi.

Donthi’s relatives in India received confirmation of his death on Friday.

The 25-year-old was last seen when spending an evening with friends at home on January 26th. He left the flat at around 9.30pm telling his roommates he was heading over to the university.

Since then no one had heard anything from him and his disappearance was reported to the police around a week after he went missing.

The circumstances surrounding Donthi’s death remain unclear with friends reporting at the time of disappearance that he appeared happy in Sweden.

“He didn’t have any problems that anyone knew of. Things seemed to be going really well,” Krishna Paruchuri, a friend of Donthi’s, told The Local at the time.

Donthi’s body was found by walkers at the mouth of a river flowing into Ronneby harbour on April 1st.

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SKIING

Spain mourns Blanca Fernández Ochoa, the Olympian skier found dead in Madrid’s sierra

The body of former Spanish alpine skimedallist Blanca Fernández Ochoa was found Wednesday in a mountainous area near Madrid after days of searches for her by hundreds of police and volunteers, officials said.

Published: 5 September 2019 09:34 CEST
Spain mourns Blanca Fernández Ochoa, the Olympian skier found dead in Madrid's sierra
Archive photo of Blanca Fernández Ochoa during her Olympic career.

The 56-year-old — won a bronze skiing for Spain in the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville, becoming the country's first female Winter Olympic medallist — had been missing since she was last spotted on surveillance video at a shopping centre on August 24th.

Her car was later found at a parking lot near the start of a hiking trail in Cercedilla, a mountainous village near Madrid. The authorities said they are still investigating the cause of her death.

“Solidarity, support and human warmth have been felt these days in the mountains of Cercedilla. Security forces and many volunteers have taken part in the search for Blanca Fernández Ochoa. But nothing could be done. My affection to all her family,” Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez tweeted.

Hundreds of police, firefighters, forest rangers and volunteers, backed by helicopters, drones and tracking dogs, had taken part in the search for Fernández Ochoa.

Her family only alerted the authorities about her disappearance on August 29th because they said it was not unusual for her to go on hikes in the area, even without her phone, according to Spanish media reports.

Police on Saturday issued an appeal on social media for help from the public in locating Fernández Ochoa along with a picture of her, which drew media attention to her disappearance.

She was well known in Spain, where she had taken part in several TV reality shows after retiring from sports.

Her older brother, Francisco Fernández Ochoa, won a gold medal for skiing in the 1972 Winter Olympics in Japan. He is the first and only Spaniard to have won a gold medal at the Winter Olympics.   

There is a statue in his honour in Cercedilla.   

Until 2018 the brother and sister were the only Spaniards to have won medals at a Winter Olympics.

“It is a very sad day for Spanish sports,” Spain's secretary of state for sports, Maria Jose Rienda, said in a statement.

READ ALSO: Snowboarder from Ceuta wins Olympic medal for Spain

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