RAIPUR: In a strange turn of events amid the devastating flash floods in Nepal, a 25-year-old man from Raipur leveraged emergency disaster helplines to trace his estranged wife, who had eloped to the neighbouring country a month earlier.
The relationship began as a modern romance. The young man, a resident of DD Nagar in Raipur, connected with Monika Yadav (24) from Chhattisgarh’s Dhamtari district on social media platform Instagram. The online courtship blossomed into an inter-caste love marriage in December 2025. However, marital harmony was short-lived. Just months into the wedding, the woman abruptly packed her bags, switched off her phone, and disappeared.
The clueless husband had earlier lodged a missing person complaint at the DD Nagar police station in Raipur on July 25 after his wife Monika unexpectedly left home. Suspecting she had crossed into Nepal with another partner (based on unverified inputs from his local contacts), but unable to establish contact, he used the disaster helpline as a last resort to trigger a cross-border search.
Following catastrophic flooding in Nepal, both central and Chhattisgarh state authorities set up round-the-clock emergency toll-free numbers (including State Control Room lines) to assist citizens stranded across the border. Taking advantage of the crisis response mechanism, the Raipur resident contacted the helpline, claiming his wife had gone missing during the floods in Nepal.
Upon receiving the alert, Chhattisgarh disaster response officials escalated the matter to administrative and diplomatic channels with the Nepal. Search teams in Nepal located the woman completely unharmed in Janakpur.
During a subsequent video call arranged by DD Nagar police to confirm her safety, authorities discovered that she had not been trapped by the deluge, but had voluntarily moved to Janakpur to live with another person.
Police officials confirmed that the woman is safe and accounted for, bringing an unexpected resolution to both the missing person case and the cross-border SOS report.
