A 37-year-old man went missing on August 30 from south Delhi’s Fatehpur Beri and is yet to be found a month later.
Ravindra Sharma’s family members suspect foul play behind his disappearance. They claimed the police registered a kidnapping case on September 15 after repeated requests.
CCTV footage
Mr. Sharma, the owner of a water purifier plant and resident of Asola Village, was last seen around 7 p.m on August 30. He was allegedly seen walking into the street where his rival Amit Gupta’s office is located.
The family procured CCTV footage showing Mr. Sharma entering the street. Mr. Sharma’s phone was switched off around 7.20 p.m. and the last location of his phone happens to be Mr. Gupta’s office.
Mr. Sharma’s family got worried when he failed to return home by 11 p.m., his usual time of arrival. They started calling him but in vain. The family then approached all of Mr. Sharma’s friends and their relatives for information. When they failed to find him, they approached the police and filed a missing complaint.
Suspecting foul play and dissatisfied with the role of the police, the family started investigating the matter themselves.
According to Deepak Sharma, his brother called an associate Manoj Tanwar at 7.17 p.m and allegedly said “Maar diya re bhai [They have hit me]”. When Mr. Tanwar called him back, the phone was switched off, the family said. Going through the CCTV footage from the area, the family spotted Mr. Gupta entering the street where his office is located on a scooty with a helper and returned in his SUV around 2.30 a.m on August 31.
When questioned by the police, he claimed his wife had fallen ill and that he went to take the car so he could take her to a hospital. Probe by the family revealed that he visited the hospital but allegedly left within 10 minutes.
Stating that they were aware of the family’s suspicions and were investigating the matter, the police said they had not found anything substantial so far. “In case Mr. Sharma has been murdered, nobody has been found. If he has been kidnapped, no ransom call has been received. We have been probing the matter ever since the missing report was filed,” said Additional Commissioner of Police (south) Chinmoy Biswal.
Probe on
On why the police took 15 days to register the FIR, Mr. Biswal said preliminary investigation was underway.
The police also said that Mr. Gupta, his helper, Mr. Tanwar and many others were questioned but they had not found any grounds to suspect them so far.
The missing man’s brother Shyam Sharma claimed he never left home without informing the family. “His wife and three children have been waiting for him. We just want to know what happened to him,” he said.