The Metropolitan Police Department’s Harbor Unit pulled the body of 22-year-old University of Maryland student Arvin Sharma out of the Anacostia River last Monday morning.
Sharma, a transfer student from Temple University scheduled to graduate this spring, had been missing since 4:00 a.m. on Saturday, April 16 according to MPD, who posted a missing persons report on April 19. His body was seen and reported to the authorities just before 10:00 a.m. near the 11th Street Bridge.
Ian Thomas (MSB ‘05), a friend of Sharma from McDonough High School in Pomfret, MD, heard about his disappearance last Thursday.
“My dad called me and told me, and I turned on the news and saw it there,” he said. “We’d hang out in high school; we went to Ocean City together a couple of years ago. I’d see him when I went home on holidays. We’d talk on IM sometimes.”
Sharma had stopped by his former apartment, where his friends Dipendra Lamichhane and Narayan Dhakal still lived, on his way to meet four other friends to go to the Lime Club in Southwest Washington around 9:30 p.m. on April 15.
“He got along with everyone,” Dhakal said. Sharma invited the other friends present to come along, although they declined due to work. He left around 10:30 p.m.
Lamichhane said that Arvin had responded to his 2002 post for a roommate because of their shared Nepalese heritage.
“He loved our culture,” Lamichhane said. “He was really friendly and we used to go out sometimes.” He said that he had convinced Sharma to change his major to Geographic Information Systems, like himself. “He was really funny. My friends and I had heavy accents but he never made fun of us.”
After he moved out, Dhakal said that Sharma, who was living with his brother in Greenbelt, MD, would often come around to say hello.
“Arvin used to come to my house almost every other day,” Lamichhane said.
Pending the results of the autopsy, the D.C. Medical Examiner’s office could offer no further information regarding the cause and manner of Sharma’s death.
“This is a terrible tragedy,” UMD Director of University Communications George Cathcart said. “The University has extended its sympathy to the family. It is very sad for this to have happened to a student on the verge of graduating, an excellent student, by all accounts.”
Kristen Mascia and Anna Ziajka contributed reporting for this article.
