It was around midnight on a quiet November night in 2024 when Shivani (name changed), a resident of Pudukkottai in Tamil Nadu, heard her phone buzz with WhatsApp notifications. Tired from a long day, she ignored it. The next morning, scrolling through her messages, one from her husband Ganesh jolted her.
It read, “I’m on a train to Palakkad. I’m having chest pain and might die. No one needs to search for me anymore.”
Panicked, Shivani tried calling him, but his phone was switched off. So, she rushed to Pudukkottai police station. There, the police registered a missing case, but days passed without progress. Shivani kept visiting the station almost daily, only to grow disheartened. Finally, she turned to the Kerala police, since Ganesh had been working in Ernakulam.
She then filed a complaint with the Nedumbassery police station. The district missing persons tracing unit here, led by Ernakulam district crime branch DySP T M Varghese and including ASI T R Manoj and SCPO Sharath S Kumar, took charge. District police chief M Hemalatha monitored the investigation closely. The squad began by analysing Ganesh’s call records.
Their first major finding confirmed that the last known tower location of his phone was in Palakkad — which matched the place mentioned in the distressing voice note he had sent to his wife before disappearing. To further the investigation, the team also coordinated with the railway police, hoping to trace Ganesh through passenger data, CCTV footage, or witness accounts from the Palakkad station area. Unfortunately, these efforts did not yield any substantial clues.
However, a turning point came when the probe team discovered that in September, i.e. several months after his disappearance, a new SIM card had been activated on the same mobile handset, identified through its unique IMEI number. This led investigators to shift their focus toward tracking that mobile number, suspecting it could lead them to Ganesh.
“For a moment, we felt we were closing in on him — it seemed like we were about to find Ganesh,” says a source with Ernakulam rural police. But that hope was short-lived. The team discovered that the phone had been stolen. “Ganesh hadn’t used any other device since, which made the search significantly more difficult,” the source adds.
At this stage, Shivani began to feel that the Kerala police too, had run out of options to find her husband. With the search dragging on for months without any significant leads, she feared the case might soon be closed quietly.
However, the Kerala police were not ready to abandon the investigation — even when it seemed like all possible clues had been exhausted.
The Kerala police team persisted, gathering testimonies from Ganesh’s family, friends, and colleagues. Slowly, a new picture emerged: in the days before vanishing, Ganesh had shown growing interest in saints, ashrams, and spiritual life, especially in Tamil Nadu. Though not concrete, these remarks offered a fresh direction for the team to pursue.
“Based on these clues, we suspected he might have gone to Tiruvannamalai, where nearly 45 ashrams surround the Arunachaleswarar Temple,” says a squad member. “But entering these spaces as police wasn’t easy. Also, looking for someone here in this sea of people was indeed a challenge,” he adds.
Despite the odds, the team pressed on. Their persistence paid off: Ganesh was finally located near Adi Annamalai, quietly living among 5,000 swamis. During questioning, Ganesh admitted he had left by choice. He said he was weary of married life and overwhelmed by responsibilities. Seeking relief from what he called “the burdens of worldly life,” he turned to devotion and spiritual retreat.
“Spirituality or devotion may be his personal choice. But when a missing person complaint is filed, it becomes our duty to investigate it thoroughly and bring solutions to those affected,” explains the police officer.