UMD student who vanished walked out of woods and asked, ‘Are you looking for me?’

Missing for six days and the subject of a campuswide police search, University of Maryland student Dilan Ashar emerged from the woods near Xfinity Center on Wednesday night and tapped on the side of a Howard County search-and-rescue vehicle.

“Are you looking for me?” Ashar, 22, asked.

He was dehydrated, disheveled, scared and hungry, UMD Police Chief David Mitchell said at a news conference Thursday morning. Ashar told police he had been in the woods, but they believe he had been moving around given that the department had unsuccessfully searched hundreds of acres on foot and by drone.

Emergency medical services were on the scene immediately to treat Ashar’s dehydration and check his vitals, Mitchell said. The student’s family then arrived for an emotional reunion.

“It’s hard to put into words how touched he was and how touched that family was,” Mitchell said.

Hours before Ashar turned up, his mother made an emotional plea on social media for the public’s help in finding her son.

“Dilan is safe and our family is together again,” Ashar’s family said in a statement that was read aloud by Patty Perillo, UMD’s vice president for student affairs. “We saw firsthand how far this university will go for one of its students. Dilan especially wants to thank the students who put up flyers all over campus and the community.”

Ashar was later transported for more medical attention, which he continued to receive Thursday.

Mitchell said the fact that Ashar was without his phone, wallet or any identification was a major warning sign for police.

“We had reason to believe that he could be in grave danger,” Mitchell said.

Asked if he could share additional details about the circumstances of Ashar’s disappearance, the chief said he was limited by privacy laws.

“I can’t get into too many details of that except to say that based on my experience and our experience, what he left behind definitely led us to believe this was a young guy in need of immediate attention and assistance,” Mitchell said. “That’s why we were all hands on deck with our search.”