THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: “Despite me being under acute stress, crying, emphasising that she would have never gone alone, that she wasn’t mentally well... that she was under treatment for post-traumatic depression... that she wouldn’t go to party, they chose not to hear me... they didn’t take me seriously; they thought it natural for a family member (of a missing person) to react like that.
They kept saying there was nothing to worry... that she’d come back. I believe there are many such cases where families report missing teenagers who’d later return. That could be the reason why they didn’t take me seriously.
Had they acted immediately, things could’ve been different!” stresses Ilze Skromane, sister of the Latvian tourist killed at Kovalam in the state capital in 2018, as she recalls to TNIE the horrifying moments she waded through for almost a month.
Eight years have passed yet painful memories linger on. And Ilze has now taken it upon herself to ensure that missing people get justice. “It’s unimaginable suffering families endure, when a loved person disappears. Every hour is filled with uncertainty, fear, and desperate hope,” she says.
That’s why Ilze believes there should be a dedicated mechanism to track missing persons. Back in Kerala after three and a half years, Ilze met Chief Minister V D Satheesan — who she terms one of the few politicians who genuinely helped her but didn’t try to reap political mileage out of it — seeking a specialised missing persons response system.
She points out that the initial hours after the disappearance are crucial and that the family would be the best judge to ascertain whether a missing person could have an underlying reason or whether the sudden disappearance requires urgent attention.
Ilze has proposed the setting up of a dedicated division that would train one officer in every police station to respond immediately when a missing case is reported.
“Based on my experience, I realised that some actions should be taken immediately. There should be a proper protocol in place to trace missing persons. By the time 24 hours pass, it’s already late,” she says.
Ilze has also requested that the initiative be named after her sister. She felt such a dedicated force would be the biggest tribute to her sister. The CM has assured her that the government would consider her requests seriously.
It was the traumatic search for her sister, lasting more than a month, that made Ilze realize what families undergo.
“Soon after I realised that she was missing, we searched everywhere we could possibility think of. When I didn’t find her in the room, I searched the place where we used to go for walks, at the Ayurveda centre where we stayed, and even checked with the autorickshaw stand. Only then did we approach the police,” she recalls.
Going by her experience, Ilze says the local police would be better equipped to identify such crime spots. “They would know the spots of criminal activity. They could’ve said if she isn’t found on the main beach, she could probably be spotted in such and such areas. Had they carried out an immediate search, they would have been able to check with the locals if she had passed through that area.
