It took strenuous efforts for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to track down a software engineer, a resident of Thira village in Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh, who went traceless from his native place 32 months ago after the girl with whom his marriage was fixed refused to marry him “for some reasons”.
Rajan Shushant Pathania, a BTech, was working with a software multinational firm based in Shimla. But when the agency tracked him down he had turned into a ‘saint’.
The CBI’s efforts led it to Ujjhaini in Badaun District in Uttar Pradesh. From there it gathered that Pathania had allegedly turned a saint and was away to the Mahakumbh at Trayambakeshwar.
It was his mobile phone that helped the CBI trace him at Neel Giri Parbat Trayambakeshwar in Nasik (Maharashtra).
The Himachal Pradesh High Court had directed the CBI to produce him following a petition under Habeas Corpus.
“He was produced before the High Court of Himachal Pradesh and the court appreciated the efforts and role of CBI in tracing him out. On missing person’s consent to go home with his mother and sister, he was handed over to his mother, present in the court,” the CBI said in a statement.
The agency had on January 1 this year registered a case following the High Court order on the petition that alleged that Pathania was abducted with intent to murder or wrongfully confined to restrain him from getting married as fixed for February 3/4, 2013.
On January 28, 2013, Pathania left his residence for shopping in Chandigarh. While coming back from Chandigarh to Sarkaghat in Mandi by bus, he had gone missing and there was no clue of his whereabouts.
An FIR was registered at Police Station Sarkaghat but the local police could not locate him. Aggrieved by the investigation of local police, his sister had approached the High Court and the investigation was transferred to CBI from the local police.