CHENNAI: Did you have a fight with your husband? Does he want to desert you? These are unkindly questions to ask a woman desperately searching for her missing husband.
But that’s what Indian Embassy officials in Malaysia seem to have done to two women from Tamil Nadu. N Devannai and S Akrasiay Banu say apathy of the embassy officials ensured that no meaningful step was taken to trace their husbands who mysteriously went missing in the foreign land 20 months ago.
Both of them had to struggle hard to fight back their tears as they expressed anger over the lethargic officials here on Saturday. “He went missing in the night of November 12, 2012.
I waited for couple of days and rushed to Kuala Lumpur on November 16. After reaching there, I went directly to the Indian embassy office there.
They were not even ready to understand what I was saying. They simply said they were not responsible if my husband quarreled and deserted me,” says Devannai.
Devannai’s husband M Nallathambi (49) and Akrasiya Banu’s husband Syed Mohammed (49), who hailed from Ramanathapuram district and later acquired permanent resident status in Malaysia, were childhood friends. “Nallathambi was scheduled to leave in a few days and both of them were together travelling in a car on November 12 when they went missing.
Frustrated with the apathy of the embassy officials, Devannai had petitioned every authority from the prime minister to the Chennai city police commissioner. But every petition finally gets forwarded to Nungambakkam police station, as she resides in Nungambakkam.
“After a dozen of petitions finally ended up in this police station, the officers in the station requested me not to file anymore petitions with any authority as it will end up in this police station and they can’t do anything more in this case,” says Devannai.