Bengaluru: Missing woman anthropologist Atreyee Majumdar found in star hotel

BENGALURU: Atreyee Majumder (35), an anthropologist and researcher who had gone missing since April 4 soon after she arrived from Canada, was found at a five-star hotel on MG Road on Wednesday morning. Police said she was suffering from mental illness and kept changing hotels as she believed someone was following her to harm her. She is currently undergoing treatment.

Atreyee had arrived in Bengaluru on April 4 from Toronto where she is currently pursuing a postdoctoral fellowship. She had reached the city on April 4 and the same night, she left her house in Bellandur without informing her parents and had also left her mobile phone at home.

Preliminary probe had revealed that she stayed at Novotel hotel in Marathahalli on April 4 and then came to Marriott hotel in Bellandur on April 5.

Police examined CCTV footage from the Marriott hotel and confirmed that she had checked out on April 6.

“There was a pattern in the hotels she chose to stay. She always checked into five-star hotels. We asked the hotel management to circulate her photos and details on a WhatsApp group in which staff of all star hotels in the city are members. It helped us get to her. On Friday morning, we received a message that she was at Taj Vivanta hotel on MG Road. Soon, the jurisdictional Ulsoor police were alerted and they reached the hotel and waited for her parents to arrive there.

She was taken for treatment immediately,” an official said. “She appears to be suffering from mental illness and thinks that someone is following her to murder her. Her parents, while registering the complaint, had told us about it and she was also undergoing treatment for the same. We could not question her much as she preferred to be left alone,” deputy commissioner of police (Whitefield), Abdul Ahad, said, adding that she was suffering from the mental illness since the last 4-5 years.

Left Toronto without informing parents

It is learnt that Atreyee, an alumna of the National Law School India University  in the city who has also studied at the Yale University, had left Toronto and arrived in India without even informing her parents. “She was not reachable over the phone for 2-3 days and the parents were worried about it. They were relieved on April 4, when she herself contacted them and informed that she was at Delhi Airport and would be reaching Bengaluru by evening. She did not even carry a handbag during the travel and only had a purse,” a police source said.

The police said that Atreyee was changing her statements about where she stayed all these days. “She is not sticking to one statement and kept changing it. She said she was staying in a hospital before checking into Taj Vivanta on April 9. She also said she was at the British Embassy on the same days. As our focus was to trace her, we have taken statements from her and her parents, and will be closing the case,” the cop added.