Friends of a missing 21-year-old Nova Scotia woman say they are baffled by her sudden disappearance.

Kashmala Fida was last seen around 8:30 a.m. Tuesday when she dropped her mother off to work at the Colchester Regional Hospital in Truro.

Fida herself was scheduled to attend a meeting there shortly after, but hospital officials say she failed to show up.

Her vehicle, however, was found in the parking lot of the hospital and her parents reported her missing.

“She dropped her mom off at 8:30, she had a subsequent appointment back at the hospital from what we gather, because the vehicle was located there,” confirms Insp. Rob Ahern. “So we’re not sure where she went.”

Police are treating her disappearance as a missing persons case and say there is no evidence of foul play at this time.  

But her friends say this kind of behaviour is completely out of character for the popular science student and they are worried.

“She’s the most outgoing friend I have, definitely,” says Fida’s friend Jennifer Archibald. “She’s got a lot of friends. She was really into doing social things around campus.”

Fida and her family live in Truro but she is a student at the University of King’s College in Halifax during the school year.

Her friends say she is involved in numerous extra-curricular activities at the university and works part-time as a receptionist so she is well-known on the King’s campus.

They also say there have been issues in the past.

Fida’s family emigrated from Pakistan when she was ready to start high school and her parents are deeply religious.

Her friends say there has been tension over her lifestyle and that Fida had planned to move out of residence into an apartment for her final year at King’s

“Stomach-churning…I’ve kind of had this nauseated feeling all day and also the franticness of not knowing,” says her friend Natascia Lypny.

Fida’s parents have declined to speak publicly about her disappearance.

Police have returned her car to her mother and they are asking for the public’s help in locating the missing woman.  

Fida is five-feet-seven inches tall, weighs roughly 128 pounds and has dark, shoulder-length hair.

She was wearing jeans and a white top when she was last seen.

Anyone with information on her whereabouts is being asked to call the Truro Police Service.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Ron Shaw