Prasad Moparti: California Bride’s Father Goes Missing On Wedding Day
Search efforts are on for finding Prasad Moparti, a 55-year-old Indian national who was on a visit to the United States for his daughter’s wedding and went missing on the very day of the wedding. According to Fox News, Moparti was last seen walking away from the wedding venue, The Grand Island Mansion in Walnut Grove, Sacramento, California, on Saturday, in what seemed to everyone to be a normal stroll. Before he disappeared, he did watch his daughter walk down the aisle. However, no one has seen him ever since. A search effort is currently underway.
After it became evident that Prasad Moparti was in some sort of trouble, a search operation was launched by the wedding guests themselves, who spent the rest of the day looking for him. Soon, they contacted the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department for help. 911 was also called. According to officials from the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department, Moparti has been classified as a “voluntary missing person.”
Prasad Moparti still missing after daughter’s wedding near Sacramento. https://t.co/5fpqab9yRz pic.twitter.com/ZcAtTDiDB6
— NBC Bay Area (@nbcbayarea) February 16, 2016
SEARCH FOR FATHER OF THE BRIDE: Prasad Moparti missing after daughter’s wedding in #walnutgrove Sat afternoon @FOX40 pic.twitter.com/JNazU1STea
— Ali Wolf (@awolfTV) February 15, 2016
Meanwhile, Moparti’s daughter, Durga Moparti, and her husband, Rajesh, are distraught at the man’s strange disappearance. She told Fox40 the following.
“I think he just went for a casual walk because one of my family members actually saw him walking down the road.”
Durga still believes he might have landed in some sort of trouble and is still OK.
“I believe that he was just walking and he fell unconscious, and he just tripped or something like that. But I’m really not sure what happened, and this seems like a total mystery.”
Meanwhile, local residents have joined in the search efforts as Moparti remains missing for the third day. According to local resident Ron Retlzlaff, who regularly fishes in the area, the space where Prasad Moparti disappeared can be dangerous terrain for those who do not know the landscape. While talking to reporters from KCRA, he added the following.
“You got to be careful. Yeah, a rock slips out, you hit your head.”
According to Sacramento County Sheriff’s deputies, they have been searching the area where he went missing with the help of their K-9 officers and volunteers. Dive crews have also been called for searching the local waterways.
Meanwhile, the newlywed couple have put their honeymoon on hold as the search for Prasad Moparti continues. The duo added that they need some closure on what happened to him before they could think of doing anything else.
“Our only focus is to get our father back, and our efforts will continue until we get our father back.”
Prasad Moparti has come to the United States just a month ago — specifically to attend his daughter’s wedding. While family members confirmed that he was normal during his stay in the U.S., some others did reveal that he was increasingly becoming homesick. Some guests even noticed something strange in his demeanor during the wedding function, a few hours before his disappearance. In fact, even his daughter believed he was depressed following his arrival in the U.S.
“It sounded like he was a little depressed and he wanted to go back to India,” Durga told KFOR.
People helping in the search for Moparti are using a picture of him that was taken only a few hours before his disappearance. He is described as being a 5’10” tall, 180 pound man who is dark-skinned. He was wearing traditional Indian wedding attire – a brown/gold-colored kurta silk top with cream-colored trousers at the time of his disappearance.
If you are a local resident or if you have any information regarding the case, and have spotted the missing individual anywhere, please contact 911.
[Image by Defiant15E, Own work | CC BY-SA 3.0 | Wikimedia Commons]
