SHIVAMOGGA: The case of the mysterious disappearance of a Kerala man from Chikkamagaluru last month has been finally cracked. Police traced him to Thane in Maharashtra where he was found staying in a lodge with his female friend.
A team of Kerala police detained Sandeep S Krishna, a marketing manager with a private firm at Kozhikode, and his friend Ashwini, at a lodge late on Wednesday night. Both their families had registered separate missing person’s complaints in Kozhikode.
Sandeep told the police that he wanted to escape from his past life and his family and hence decided to fake his death. He thought that if his family believed that he was dead, then nothing would come in the way of him starting a new life with his female friend.
After his disappearance from Chikkamagaluru, Sandeep discarded his mobile phone and travelled to Mangaluru via Shringeri by bus. From there, he took a train to Mumbai. “From Mumbai, he contacted Ashwini over phone. After Ashwini informed him about his missing case going viral in Kerala and Karnataka, Sandeep decided to go to Ludhiana in Punjab. He had taken up a small paying guest accommodation in Mumbai before he went to Punjab,” an investigating officer told The New Indian Express.
As per their plans, 15 days after Sandeep went missing, he asked Ashwini to come to Mumbai. When police came to know about Ashwini too going missing, they started tracking her mobile phone records. They came to know that both were to meet in Mumbai after Sandeep returned from Ludhiana.
“Ashwini went to Mumbai and met Sandeep on December 12. They had booked a small lodge in Thane and were staying there for the last 15 days. He did some odd jobs as the couple was running short of money. Ashwini had even carried some cash and jewellery from her house. Both Sandeep and Ashwini will be taken to Kerala on Friday,” the officer said.
Sandeep went missing on November 25 from Hariharapura in Chikkamagaluru district. His bike was found on a bridge across the Tunga river and his badge and ID card were found near the river. Sandeep’s family had suspected foul play as his broken watch was also found there. But the Chikkamagaluru police, who took up initial investigations, had denied it. Suspecting that Sandeep could have drowned, the district police had taken up a massive search and rescue operation involving divers, drones and underwater cameras. The CCTV footage collected by the police showed that Sandeep was alone and did not looked like he was forced by anyone.
The police said they incurred costs of about `4 lakh of which most was spent on getting divers, rafts, underwater cameras and drones. “Police personnel trekked for 25 km downstream of Tunga river in search of Sandeep’s body. “There is no provision to recover the cost from the accused or the victim. It will be borne by the government,” Chikkamagaluru police said.