NRI Woman Goes Missing After Boarding a Train for Bhubaneswar from Lokmanya Tilak Terminus in Mumbai

Mumbai, March 15: A 76-year-old NRI woman went missing after boarding a long distance train from the Lokmanya Tilak Terminus (LTT) in suburban Kurla, a senior GRP official said today. The woman, identified as Devikiamma Pillai, a South African national of Indian origin, had apparently come to India on a vacation last month. She had put up at a guest house in south Mumbai's Colaba area on February 21, he said.

On February 23, the woman boarded a train for Bhubaneswar from the LTT, but she did not reach there, as per her daughter, and has been missing since then, the Government Railway Police (GRP) official said. Her last mobile phone location was traced to Gondia in Maharashtra. Since then, her phone has been unreachable, he said. The matter came to light on March 1 when Pillai's daughter, who was unable to contact her, called up the guest house from South Africa and enquired about her. She then got to know that her mother had left the guest house.

The daughter told the guest house manager that she was not able to contact her mother and requested him to approach the local police, the official said. The guest house manager subsequently lodged a missing person's complaint with the Government Railway Police in Kurla on March 2, he said.

"During the investigation, we traced Pillai's train co-passenger, to whom she had apparently told that she was going to meet a friend in Bhubaneswar," GRP's senior inspector Mahesh Balvant Rao said. "Pillai used to come to India every year and stay at the same guest house. We are enquiring from the guest house's owner about her belongings, the purpose of visit and also trying to get some more information which may help us in finding her," he said. Based on the information, the CCTV footage of some railway stations was being scanned and a special team was formed to investigate the matter and trace the woman, he added.