Two months on, no trace of Amritsar youth missing in Oz

Tuesday, 15/07/2014

http://paper.hindustantimes.com/epaper/viewer.aspx

JALANDHAR: For tracing Shiva Chauhan, 27, an Amritsar district youth who went missing in Australia in May, his brother has gone to that country to assist its police, since the family claims the Indian embassy has didn’t try it best to find the man from Beas.

Chauhan, a delivery-van driver in Melbourne, is missing since May 2 when he had gone out to make a routine drop.

His relatives have no clue about his whereabouts. The Melbourne police have made a public appeal for any information about him and even circulated his pictures.

The public notice from the city’s homicide and missing people squad mentions that Shiva had stepped out on the night of May 1 and was last seen at a bakery around 12.30am on May 2.

On Friday, his delivery van was found abandoned on another road.

Balwinder Kumar, one of the relatives of the missing youth, said here on Monday that Chauhan had gone to Australia in 2010 on study visa and picked up part-time job to pay for his education. He said the Melbourne police had failed to find him because the Indian government had not taken up case properly with the Australian government.

“Chauhan’s brother, Dinesh, travelled to Australia by making own arrangements for money and visa, as the Indian government offered him no help,” said Kumar, adding that the Australian police had a theory that either Shiva would come back on his own or he was dead.

The family has request the union and state governments to take up the case with the Australian government . Chauhan’s friends have started the campaign “Please Help Find Shiva Chauhan” on social networking website Facebook, and they post latest updates from Australia on the page on which they have also put newschannel clippings about how he went missing.

On May 1, he had last communicated with the family on Whats App but his mobile phone is inactive since.

His roommates in Australia suspect foul play in the disappearance, fearing he might even have been kidnapped.

The police found his personal belongings from a car the day after he went missing.

The family contacted Nirmal Chaudhary, consul and head of the chancery at the Consulate General of India in Melbourne, and had requested him through e-mail to pursue the case with the Melbourne police.

The police in the Australian southeastern state of Victoria collected Chauhan’s details from his brother, who is in construction business in New Delhi.