Family missing in Pakistan since 2015, no clue yet

Balwant Garg

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, April 22

Over three years of efforts of the police and intelligence agencies to dig into the mobile phone record of a family of four members of Faridkot, who had gone missing in Pakistan in April 2015, have failed to make any breakthrough.

The family, including two children, hailing from Sandhawala village had gone to Pakistan with a Sikh jatha for Baisakhi celebrations on April 11, 2015.

While the rest of 1,718 members of the Sikh jatha returned to India after a 10-day trip on April 20, 2015, the whereabouts of Sunil Singh, his wife Sunita and two children Umer Singh and Huma Kaur are not known for the past over three years.

It is believed that Sunil Singh and his family disappeared at Gurdwara Sri Panja Sahib at Hasan Abdal, a historical town in Pakistan, near Rawalpindi on April 14, notwithstanding the deployment of Pakistan security agencies around the Gurdwara to check such movement.

As Sadhawala village of Faridkot is situated at a distance of just 25 km from the Indo-Pak border and there is a military ammunition depot and firing range near the village, the mysterious disappearance of the family from this village is a sensitive issue for the police and intelligence agencies in India and Pakistan.

The police investigation about the family background of Sunil Singh, a daily wager, could not collect much information in the past three weeks as he had been living in a two-room dharamshala at Sandhawala village since March 2010.

Villagers do not know much about his background except that in 2010 he had reached the village with his children and wife, claiming he was the son of Gian Singh, who had eloped with a girl from the village over four decades ago.

Sunil expressed his wish to settle down in the village after coming from Rajasthan and the village panchayat allowed him to stay in the dilapidated dharamshala.

After applying all conventional and convenient methods of investigation to trace Sunil’s background in Rajasthan, the police and investigative agencies have closed the file.

“We had hawked the mobile phone records of Sunil Singh to collect calling data to trace his relatives and acquaintances in Punjab and Rajasthan, but it did not provide us any clue,” said a senior police officer in Faridkot.

Police sources said Sunil Singh got his passport made in July 2014. The passport was issued on the basis of ration card, Aadhaar card and voter card.

The question that a person without a permanent residence address and no one in the village knowing his background gets ration card, Aadhaar card, voter card and a passport has puzzled investigating agencies.

While tracing Sunil’s background, the investigating agencies came across many voters and ration card holders among the gypsies, the nomadic families, who are camping in some villages in Faridkot by pitching their tents on vacant government land.

Without any permanent address, these gypsies were issued voter cards and ration cards days before the elections here.