Police are yet to crack the case of disappearance of Pawan Shah, a 46-year-old government official, who has been missing since September 4.
According to his family, they last met Shah, who was employed as a manager at Indraprastha Power Generation Co Limited, on the day he went missing — they claimed that he went to work but never returned. His car was found near the Yamuna in east Delhi and his phone was missing.
Since then, while police are yet to find a breakthrough in the case, questioning of a few minors who claimed to be eyewitnesses revealed that Shah jumped into the river. His family, however, has denied the claim.
To confirm the claim, police over the last month deployed divers, swimmers and teams of the National Disaster Response Force to look for his body but is yet to be recovered. A kidnapping case was eventually registered.
A senior police officer said a case was registered on September 17 at Kotwali police station after efforts were made to find him. “A case under Section 140 (kidnapping) of the BNS was registered and investigation was taken up, but he has not been found,” the officer said.
According to the first information report seen by HT, Priya Shah said that her husband had left their Noida home for work on September 4 at around 8.30am, as usual. She later spoke to him on the phone at around 2pm, when he allegedly told her that he was going to pick up lunch from his car that was parked outside. The two didn’t speak after that. At around 4.30pm, she allegedly received a call from his colleague asking if Shah had reached home, and she denied.
Shah’s brother-in-law Nirmal Mehta said that he had a meeting at the Delhi secretariat at around 4pm but he didn’t reach there too after which his colleagues started calling him and eventually alerted the wife.
“His wife then called him several times but he didn’t answer. Subsequently, she went looking for him with his colleagues. His google mail account was open on her phone using which she could ascertain his last location which was near the Yamuna under Geeta Colony flyover,” Mehta said.
At around 10.30pm, she spotted his car on the flyover with its passenger side window broken and his phone missing. The phone was switched off after 7:30pm, the family said, adding that Shah’s wife then called the police.
A second police officer said that they took up investigation in the case, and first decided to scan CCTV camera. However, there was no CCTV camera outside Shah’s office, and the one near the bridge where the car was found was not functional, the investigator said.
Police then turned to questioning locals. “A few minors said that they saw Shah jumping from the flyover. Eventually, one of their friends broke the window and stole the phone. However, their claims are yet to be verified because the phone has not been recovered,” the officer cited above said.
Police said that they roped in divers, swimmers and a team of NDRF to verify the claim, but could not find a body.
Finally, a case on charges of kidnapping was registered on September 17.
“We are trying other means to find him but there’s no headway for now. The measures cannot be disclosed for investigation purposes,” the officer said.
Meanwhile, the members of his family said that Shah could not have died by suicide because they did not see any such signs. “He was happy at work and there was no problem in the family as well. He was a health freak and used to go for morning walks and encourage a healthy lifestyle,” Mehta said.
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