Left behind

The disappearance of Bhandup family man Harsh Arora from his morning walk more than a month ago is everyonersquos worst fear Holes in the legal and police system no guidance on whom to approach or just zero leads and a trail gone coldmdashnot just the Aroras so many families have been waiting with eyes peeled on the door every dayWe met relatives who have not given up hope or left a stone unturned in search of the loved lost one110221No of persons missing from Maharashtra in 2022 as per National Crime Records Bureau datalsquoI looked closely at every Vrindavan beggar to see if he was my sonrsquoYou know what his deal is rightrdquo Suraj Rajbhar asks us as we pick our way through the narrow lanes of Banjar Pada area in Dindoshi Suraj is cousin to Vidyadhar Rajbhar who has been missing for the last eight years He is a wanted accused in the sensational double murder of artist Hema Upadhyay and her divorce lawyer Harish Bhambhani Last month the Dindoshi Sessions Court convicted Hemarsquos estranged husband and celebrated artist Chintan Upadhyay and three others in the case Their bodies were discovered in a storm water drain in Kandivli West wrapped in plastic and stuffed into cardboard boxes Bhambanirsquos face indicated multiple blows with a blunt weapon Hemarsquos hands were tied behind her back and the police said she may have been smotheredSavitri Rajbhar has had to divide her time between he brotherrsquos Dindoshi home and her daughterrsquos Varanasi residence after the police sealed her Kandivali home following her son Vidyadhar Rajbharrsquos arrest PicAnurag Ahire right Vidyadhar Rajbhar alias Gotu has been missing since 2015 His last known location according to the police was Guwahati File picChintanrsquos coaccused Vijay Pradeep and Shivkumar Rajbhar were art fabricator Vidyadharrsquos employeesSuraj looks at us quizzically when we say that we are reconnecting with families dealing with the disappearance of a loved one No one has asked them about well them most of the questions the family that Vidyadhar has left behind has fielded have been about the crime that Vidyadhar stands accused of Surajrsquos immediate response when this writer identified himself is ldquoOh interviewrdquoThe house is a single room on a mezzanine which you reach via a narrow ladder The lane outside can hardly hold one person Inside the house are its five residents including Savitri Rajbhar Most of the time that we are there she stares into the distanceWe ask her how old she is She thinks hard for a long minute before answering ldquoSixtyhellip and fourhellip no fiverdquoFor her the last eight years have been a spiral into hopelessness She has no roof over her head and is at the mercy of her relatives The house where we meet her belongs to her brother Abhimanyu which she shares with his wife Madhuri their two young children and two other relatives The kitchen platform is separated by a narrow strip of open space from a single mattress Abhimanyu and his family sit on the mattress Savitri sits on the floor directly under large idols They are her only source of solaceldquoOur house in Kandivli was sealed immediately after the case was registered We owned it Vidyadhar was born there I could not take anything from my home not even old pictures of my son and his older sisters Since that day Irsquove been shuttling between Mumbai and Varanasi where my daughter is marriedrdquoSavitri was in Varanasi in December 2015 when Hema and Bhambhanirsquos bodies were found According to Savitrirsquos confession two days later Vidyadhar called her to confess that he had killed the two but refused to reveal where he was That was the last that anybody heard of him Despite a fivecity manhunt the police landed nothingldquoEverybody is sympathetic but how long can I impose on anyone I canrsquot stay in my daughterrsquos house forever and it isnrsquot as if my brother has money in abundancerdquo Savitri adds Abhimanyu nods dejectedly Like Vidyadhar and his father before him he too was in the fabrication business but his association with an alleged accused impacted the contracts that came to him He no longer has a steady job and his son Suraj supports the family by doing odd jobsldquoIt breaks our heart to see her like thisrdquo Madhuri adds ldquoWe will always be there for her but it is painful to see her live like a nomadrdquo She offers us prasad from their recent visit to Vrindavan Savitri was there too but she had different prioritiesldquoI went around the place looking at each and every beggar and pavement dweller to check if one of them was my son I stop on the street and looking at each passing man carefully Any one of them could be my son but eight years have passed I donrsquot know if I will recognise himrdquo she says as she starts sobbingShe is battling diabetes and chronic joint pain Walking and climbing the stairs are painful ldquoI donrsquot care what happens after he returns I just need him to be in front of me Right now my life is an endless cycle of us inquiring with the police about his whereabouts and them doing the same with usrdquo she says leaning her head back against the walllsquoCan the President of Kenya not supervise one investigation properlyrsquoIftikhar Khan is patient and polite to a fault He is speaking to us via videocall from Dubai where he stays with his wife It has taken a few attempts to connect but he has shown no irritation It is only when he starts talking that the weight of the last oneandahalf years begins to showZulfiqar Khan far right with his elder brother Iftikhar and sisterinlaw Zeba in happier times Pic CourtesyIftikhar KhanOn June 23 2023 Iftikhar got a call from Ambreen Kidwai who was in Kenya at the time Her husband Zaid Sami Kidwai and Iftikharrsquos younger brother Zulfiqar had gone out for dinner the previous night and didnrsquot return What followed were a series of shocks each worse than the previousThe same day a taxi was found abandoned in Nairobi with its engine running and doors open in the Ole Sereni area in Kenya It was the taxi that Zulfiqar and Zaid had taken from the restaurant Their driver Nicodemus Mwange was also missing Even as a relative rushed to Kenya to make inquiries Dennis Itumbe a supporter of the current Kenyan president William Ruto took to Facebook to declare that Zulfiqar and Zaid had been killed by a rogue Kenyan police unit that had enjoyed unlimited carte blanche under Rutorsquos predecessorldquoAll wersquove been hearing are storiesrdquo says Iftikhar ldquoEarlier we were told that they are alive and will be back soon Now the Kenyan authorities say that they fear the worst Someone even told us unofficially that both were killed on the fourth day of their abduction But the Kenya police has not found a body or cluerdquoThe lack of closure has compounded the shock of his disappearance and bizarre link to Kenyan politicsZulfiqar was Chief Operating Officer with Balaji Telefilms and was on a sabbatical when he disappeared In fact the production housersquos head Ekta Kapoor had taken to Instagram to appeal to the Government of India to find him Zulfiqar was a part of the digital campaign team for current president Rutorsquos party Kenya Kwanza during the electionsTwo days before he vanished Zulfiqar had called Iftikhar to say that he had booked his tickets back to Dubai He had planned to spend a while thereldquoZulfi is the youngest of six siblings I am the oldest All of us have pampered him since childhoodrdquo Iftikhar says smiling despite himselfIn an exclusive report published on October 23 midday had accessed the chargesheet filed against 15 former officers of the Kenya Policersquos Special Services Unit The eightpage chargesheet stated that Zulfiqar and Zaid were held captive in the police headquarter premises in Old Nairobi and later taken to the Aberades National Park in Nyeri CountyCoincidentally President Ruto was on a diplomatic visit to India on the same day that midday spoke to Iftikhar According to news reports India discussed the issue of Zulfiqar and Zaidrsquos disappearance with the president of the East African nation The External Affairs Minister confirmed that the matter was raised at the highest levelldquoYes we are aware of this detail The lawyer who is representing us in the Kenyan Court is also part of Rutorsquos entourage We got in touch with him hoping for some interaction but were told he is busy Earlier he had announced that he is overseeing the investigation personally Are we to believe that the President of a country canrsquot supervise a missing personrsquos investigation properlyrdquo Iftikhar wondersHe points out how all the individuals who had claimed on social media that Zulfiqar was killed are now office bearers in Rutorsquos government How were the rogue cops arrested in the case given bail despite the Khan familyrsquos objection on record and why did the Indian government not seem interested in pursuing the matter Questions puzzle the family Iftikharrsquos wife Zeba cuts in entering the camera frame for the first timeldquoHe doesnrsquot know how to express his emotionsrdquo she tells us referring to her husband rattling off facts ldquoThe family is stuck between two stories one that he is safe and another that says that he is no more No evidence to substantiate either It has been an endless ordeal filled with agony anxiety and breakdownsrdquoIftikhar sits stoically as Zeba talksldquoThe family is a wreck All we are asking is that we be told the truth so that there can be closure While the new government was taking shape they said that Zulfi and Zaid are safe Now we are hearing something else We are ready for the truth whatever that isrdquolsquoMy daughter is gold when she giggled the house would light uprsquoThere is not much Amrut Sawant remembers about his sister Dhanashree but he remembers this I was known as her brother She was the popular one ldquoEveryone loved herrdquo says her mother a retired BMC nurse who worked on polio drives ldquoShe was clever happy always smiling and very artistic Her handwriting was like pearls she swam cycled and always ranked among the first five in class winning a scholarship in seventh and ninth grade I have stacks of her drawings saved she won so many medals at drawing contests People were surprised when they found out she was 95 per cent deaf she spoke effortlessly We never worried about her we knew she would make it in liferdquoDhanashree Sawant at 23 Pic CourtesySawant FamilyDhanashree would have been 40 this year In the nearly two decades since her disappearance in 2006 in Delhi her parentsmdashShanta and Vinayakmdash have retired Her brother then 18 is now 36 and the force behind tracing her He is studying for a Masters in Law All three became advocates in 2022mdashher mother topping the batch in 10 semestersmdashto fight her case in the Bombay High CourtThey no longer live in the RBI quarters at Mumbai Central around which their world revolved having moved to the corners of Kharghar Navi Mumbai in 2016 Her best friend has got married and fallen out of touch with the family There are no pictures of her in the house but an album of themmdashcontaining blackandwhite snapshots of key moments some coloured ones taken at professional studiosmdashis close at hand Her mother is sure she would have been working as an artist by nowIn November 2006 23yearold Dhanashree and her father had gone to Delhi for the first time to attend a satsang organised by Sant Nirankari Mission with a group of people ldquoI used to attend the satsangs because you would get to hear good thingsrdquo says Vinayak now 69 ldquoI didnrsquot want them to gordquo says Shanta 58 ldquoBut the group convinced me that there was nothing to worry about as all of them were going together and it was only for threefour daysrdquo On November 13 at the satsang attendees where sifted into gender based lines at entry and though Vinayak tried to explain to the security professionals that his daughter was hearingimpaired they were separated He told her to wait for him by a white car inside but never saw her again Later at the Burhadi police station they only took down a missing persons complaint it was one among many who had gone missing from the same eventA wall at the Sawantrsquos Kharghar residence holds the law certificates of all three family members Her parents and brother became advocates in 2022 to fight her case in the Bombay High CourtldquoWe were let down by our own people nobody told us about the difference between a complaint and an FIRrdquo says Vinayak ldquoNobody told us we could approach the High Court directly There was no guidance about a Missing Persons Cellhellip How would common people like us know whom to approach or how to pressure the policerdquoldquoAnd those were the days before cellphones were common or social mediardquo says Amrut If this were today the family of all those missing from the satsang would have been on a WhatsApp group sharing resources pushing for action Here Amrut has been propelling the change as social media evolves First the only point of contact was the familyrsquos landline Since then he has made a page on Facebook The number is now her motherrsquos cell phone The Bombay High Court has got involved a Bench comprising Justices Revati MohiteDere and Gauri Godse reprimanded the police on June 23 this year saying ldquoWe expect the police to be sensitive It must be so hard for the parents Their daughter goes missing There has to be some closurerdquoBut the slap on the wrist may be too little too late In the first year Vinayak made many trips to Delhi to follow up with the police but then Shanta was bedridden for a year by a road accident and Amrut shared the responsibility to take her to physiotherapy yoga sessions at Marine Drive and to workA few years prior in 2003 Amrut had to be sent to their village in Ratnagiri to recover from an intense case of psoriasis sparked by a spate of high fever that shot every evening Itrsquos a disease he still suffers frommdashat times of stress his skin inflames to the point of bleeding sores It has prevented him from having a personal life or marriage Slowly the family began focusing on their younger child ldquoIt took me a few years to understand the gravity of the lossrdquo says Amrut ldquoI must have been about 23 when it really sunk in I donrsquot have too many memories of her just general ones about going to school togetherrdquoShanta and Vinayak taught Dhanashree together She taking her homework he taking her on field trips to show her the world ldquoHersquod take her to the vegetable stall and let her buy them independently follow her as she cycled to school show her what a gardener does a doctor doesmdashall the practical thingsrdquo says her mother ldquoShe was in a special school only for three years She could name all the maidans of Mumbai in their geographical order from south Mumbai even I canrsquot do that She studied Kathak for a year but then we routed her more towards art when we saw where her talent lay Just while sitting about shersquod draw mehendi or sketch Once she came first in a drawing contest from 5000 childrenrdquoAt the time of her disappearance Dhanashree was studying painting at the Industrial Training Institute in Agripada ldquoOnly oncerdquo goes on Shanta who remembers the most about her daughter ldquowhen she was in eighth standard she asked me why she couldnrsquot hear when all of us could After that she withdrew into a shell and wouldnrsquot speak much We started teaching children for free at home in the hope that she would find someone to talk tordquoOver the years the family has received phone calls from people claiming to have seen Dhanashree in Mathura Hyderabad Poladpur in Raigad Nashik and Goa They have gone to each of these places following it up with the police thereldquoOnce I got a call from a girl claiming to be Dhanashreerdquo says Shanta ldquoBut there was a cross connection and I could also hear a manrsquos voice Before I could ask her where she was the call got cut But we traced the number to Poladpur When we went there it turned out to be the house of someone from the Nirankari Mission who was involved in the satsang He said his young daughter also named Dhanashree must have called us But how could she have the numberrdquo Another time a police constable accompanied Vinayak to Goa talking all the while on the phone to a man who said he had seen Dhanashree But after they landed he switched off his phone and could not be traced Several other efforts followed as they would by parents A visit to a rescueandrehab centre in Kandivli the doors of a private investigator and even a man who offered to find her for R5000 ldquoI offered to write down on bond paper that I would give him whatever price he namedrdquo says Vinayak ldquobut only after my daughter was found So many babas sandhisadhus approached us saying they could find our daughter for a price You are easy targets for such dupes We chose to use the path of lawrdquoThe family finally approached the High Court Legal Services committee and filed a petition seeking an investigation into Dhanashreersquos ldquosuspiciousrdquo disappearance and are pushing for a nationwide search ldquoWe just need to know where she isrdquo says Amrut confidently ldquoWersquoll pull her out from anywhererdquoldquoI am sure shersquos saferdquo says Shanta ldquoIn all these years I have never felt that something bad has happened to her I have always known she is safe Wersquove never wronged anyone How can she not be saferdquoldquoThere is a higher power you knowrdquo says Vinayak ldquoThis is all a testrdquolsquoOnce Harsh is home all my demands will startrsquoThe atmosphere in the Arora household in Lal Bahadur Shastri Nagar is of defiant optimism On the righthand corner of the front door is an Islamic prayer pasted by the driver who brought Harshrsquos brother to the apartment the day he went missing ldquoWhen the driver found outrdquo says Reena his spouse ldquohe requested to paste the prayer there confident that it would guide Harsh backrdquoHarsh and Reena Arora have been married 12 years and known each other for 19 Pic CourtesyReena AroraBefore we sit down to speak Reena switches off the Mahalakshmi mantra playing on the computer in a loop ldquoItrsquos supposed to bring back lost peoplerdquo the 41yearold real estate professional explains In their bedroom is an energy circle tasked with the same She asks her mother who sits wordlessly in the corner of the room to light the diya at the altar above her a practice they have only started recently A tarot card reader has told Reena that Harshrsquos lower body is heavy and he needs help ldquoBut he will come back before the year ends I know he will He loves his family too much to go awayrdquoSince October 30 people have been divided into two teams for Reena ldquoIf you are positive that Harsh will come back you are on my team If you are going to seed doubt in my mind tell me to prepare myself for the worse you are notrdquoOn that Monday October 30 Harsh left home at 430 am as he did every day to complete his daily target of 10000 steps ldquoHe was always urging me to come with himrdquo says his wife of 12 years ldquoI have a thyroid problem and he had researched the medication I take so deeply that he recommended that I donrsquot take it and exercise instead Banda saat baje aa kar darvaaze pe declare karta lsquoTen thousand steps donerdquoThen followed a welloiled routine of happy domesticity He would take their 10yearold son downstairs to wait for the school bus while Reena laid out the breakfast table Theyrsquod eat together and head to their jobs She at a real estate firm in Bhandup Harsh to his financial institution Only that Monday he didnrsquot come back or respond to messages At first Reena thought hersquod gone to pick up his bike from the garage By evening she filed a missing persons complaint CCTV cameras showed Harshmdashdressed in a black joggers and vestmdashat the Airoli junction on the Eastern Express Highway There has been no news of him after that and nothing to suggest he engineered his own disappearanceThe couplersquos bank account remains untouched They had been saving up for a house and a trip to Dubai was planned for December ldquoI know how to read the real estate market so we had decided to buy in Thane and didnrsquot want to take a loanrdquo says Reena ldquoNo money or gold from the house is missing On Friday we had gone to give my karva chauth dress to the tailor On Sunday we went out and enjoyed a BEST bus ride just like that because our son wanted tordquo On weekends Harsh would take over the kitchen or get busy gardening within the housing complex Lately hersquod been into making soaps ldquoHe didnrsquot like to sit at home on Sundays Every weekend he would have a plan Going to Marine Drive or Thane Or just freaking out sic with friends at ChaayosrdquoThe couplersquos WhatsApp exchanges paint a picture of everyday joys Discussions of which shoe rack to buy ldquoThis one has a lockrdquo A photo of him and their son at a friendrsquos birthday party ldquoGiving him batman soap as presentrdquo from him Pictures from Reena asking opinions on what to wear to a party ldquoHave you seen my grey trousersrdquo The odd picture of a chaotic wardrobe ldquoWhat is this messrdquo From him ldquoHis cupboard is always neatly organised I get only one day offrdquo she says sheepishly The mangalsutra he was supposed to buy her in March ldquoItrsquos the first thing Irsquoll make him buy for me when he gets back Now all my demands will startrdquo And then that angry message from her on October 30 This is just not done Harsh You are not responding to calls Call me as soon as you canldquoI have been his wife for 12 years we dated for seven years before that Ours is a didi tera deewanatype love story His elder brother is married to my cousin and we met at their wedding We did everything together If something had happened to him I would know in my heartrdquo Though she addresses him by his name and uses the pronoun lsquotursquo Harshrsquos number is saved as lsquoAaprsquo on her phoneReena observed karva chauth in the week after Harshrsquos disappearance When Diwali came she hoped the sound and sight of firecrackers would jolt Harshrsquos memory like it does in the movies Every other day a member of the family does a round of Bhandup Police station to check on progress Posters of Harsh have been circulated on social mediaReena breaks down only once during our conversation when we ask her how she has been sleeping ldquoI have thyroid so the exhaustion takes over by evening and I shut down So far I have been in lsquodoingrsquo mode but now I have to run the house go to work and take care of my son I am not thinking about what will happen on a singleincome My friend who is a lawyer has told me to think practically about my finances But I donrsquot want to let even a sliver of negativity enter my mind People have told me to be clear about what I am wishing for I say that I will accept him in whatever condition he comes Whether he has use of all his faculties whether he can work again or not There is God He will take care of us Our son turns 11 in December If Harsh returns before that it will be like a wow sic Then I will also join him for his morning walk Just not as early as 430rdquo