BENGALURU:Brijpal Goushia from Rajasthan, the 40-year-old injured labourer at a tile factory in Andhra Pradesh’s Chittoor, who has mysteriously gone missing from the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) a week ago while trying to take a flight to Jaipur, never boarded the flight.
Learning of this on Monday, the airport police visited several hospitals around the city to look for him, but in vain. When he was left outside the terminal by security personnel, he was on a wheelchair and carried no mobile phone to contact anyone for help.
Brijpal had sustained a fracture in his leg while working in Chittoor, and was advised bed rest for a few days. He sought to return home and his relatives had booked him on a flight as he could not travel by train. It was the first time he was flying.
It has now come to light that officials of the IndiGo airlines, whose flight he was to take to Jaipur, did not allow him to board the flight without a medical certificate to prove his injury so that additional space could be provided for his plastered leg. IndiGo did not respond to our attempts to reach them for a comment.
‘Missing’ man from airport was last seen outside terminal
Brijpal was forced to leave the departure lounge of the airport by the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel who escorted him to the benches outside the terminal. That was the last he was seen, as per CCTV footage. An investigation officer confirmed this to The New Indian Express.Meanwhile, Brijpal’s relatives in Jaipur who were waiting at the airport in that city to receive him were shocked to find no sign of Brijpal on any of the flights from Bengaluru.
His room-mate Mahesh Kumar Soni, who had come to see him off at the KIA, and who left the airport after Brijpal entered the departure lounge, later filed a missing person complaint with the airport police. However, Brijpal, who had to be ushered in as well as out of the airport on a wheelchair, is nowhere to be found till date.
The police said that he had not carried a mobile to contact anyone or be contacted.Meanwhile, Mukesh told TNIE that Brijpal’s family members are suspecting him of having “done something” to Brijpal instead of dropping him to the airport.
“Brijpal was sharing a room along with me and another labourer in Chittoor since several years. Brijpal, who was a bachelor, had no enmity with anyone and was a very friendly person,” he said.