Missing techie: DCP warns of action against OLX chief

BENGALURU: Fifteen days after he initially went missing while trying to close a deal with a buyer he found on online trading website OLX, there have been no clues that could lead to the whereabouts of Ajitabh, a techie from Patna who went missing on December 18.The police, who have been on the case since then, took to social media site Twitter to cut through what they claimed was a reluctance by OLX to share details with them.

Tired of not receiving a response to their questionnaires, DCP (Whitefield) Abdul Ahad tweeted directly to Amarjit Singh Batra, the founder of OLX’s India division and threatened the company with legal action.
According to officials, the police had been sent an email from OLX on December 22 with basic details of the case which was not sufficient. On December 26, a detailed set of questions was sent back to the company which did not elicit a response. Calls made to representatives were unsuccessful leading to DCP Ahad taking to a public platform to get the message across.

The tweet went viral with Twitterati castigating OLX for not cooperating. The case of Ajitabh has received considerable interest online with a campaign being started on petitioning website Change.org demanding a speedy enquiry by the police. Ajitabh, had listed his car on OLX.com and had left his home at 6.30 pm after which he cannot be traced.

Facing backlash, the company immediately responded on Twitter and claimed that it had forwarded the responses to the police on their email address immediately on December 22. However, there was no mention made of the second request for information reportedly sent by the police on December 26. OLX even asked if the police wanted the information forwarded to another email address.

However, the issue seems to have been resolved later as DCP Ahad, speaking to Express, said, “After Tuesday’s Twitter episode, the legal team and other representatives of OLX have assured to cooperate with the investigations by sharing information.” Other officials said that the case was very complex because the motive for the crime is unknown. Ajitabh’s father, has meanwhile asked for a CBI probe.