PALAKKAD: A sense of foreboding has crept over people of Alathur, a village located near Palakkad-Thrissur highway. Just two months after Alathur native Surya Krishna, 21, went missing on August 30, four children have now disappeared.
Shreya and Shreja, 14-year-old twin daughters of Suresh Kumar, their classmates Arshad, 14, son of Yakkoob of Chundakkad, and Afzal Mohammad, 14, son of Manaf of Melarcod — all Class 9 students of ASM Higher Secondary School — had reached Palakkad town around 3.30pm on November 3 as per CCTV visuals. The police have registered a case on the parents’ complaint.
“The girls had told their friends that they were planning a tour. But they did not reveal the destination. Their family is not aware of any mobile phone they might be carrying. We suspect they were using a phone in private. We are trying to trace the details of this phone,” said Alathur CI Riyaz Chakkeri told TNIE. He said the CCTV visuals indicate the four students reached the KSRTC bus stand on Wednesday evening and boarded a bus to Tamil Nadu. We have deployed teams to neighbouring states,” he said.
Two months ago, on August 30, Surya of Puthiyangam in Alathur went out to purchase books, but did not return. Surya, the daughter of Radhakrishnan and Sunitha, was a second-year BA (Literature) student at Mercy College, Palakkad.
According to the police, she had left the house in a well-planned move and boarded a train from Coimbatore under a different name. She was not carrying a mobile phone or an ATM card when she left. All she had were two pairs of dresses in her bag, the police said.
Though the Alathur police had issued a lookout notice, Surya is yet to be traced. A 15-member team headed by DySP K A Devassia has been constituted to investigate Surya’s missing case.