Durban man missing: CISF says he left from Mumbai airport voluntarily

Dhramalingum-Pillay. File Pic

A 69-year-old retired Durban man, Dhramalingum Pillay (Dan), is still untraceable, five days after he went missing from Mumbai International Airport. During the investigations, the CISF found that Dan himself allegedly went outside the airport after making an entry citing the same. However, Dan's daughter Rebecca Pillay, claimed that no such entry exists, and demanded that CCTV cameras of the airport areas be checked.

Pillay is a resident of South Africa and he came to India as a tourist with his daughter Rebecca on January 21. Pillay suffers from memory loss and has high blood pressure.

A CISF official told mid-day that, "We checked the entries and found that the passenger, Dhramalingum Pillay was shown as 'self-offload' and he went outside of the airport. Once the passenger enters the airport, he/she can't go outside easily. There are some procedures passengers have to follow. During this procedure, the passenger gives consent to airport officials that they don't want to get into the flight. There are also registers maintained by CISF officials at the airport, and we make entries of the people who are going out of the airport. On January 30, we found a similar entry for Pillay."

Rebecca Pillay registered a missing complaint at Sahar Police Station after her father went untraceable.

The father daughter duo came to India on January 21, they visited Chennai and Bangalore. They booked a flight to return to South Africa on January 30. Their flight was scheduled to take off at 6.15 am but had got delayed and rescheduled for a takeoff at 7.30 am, and later to 9.15 am.

Also Read: How did CISF let my aged father leave the airport? asks South African national

Meanwhile, at around 6.15 am, Rebecca took a nap for a few minutes, when she woke up, her father was not next to her and went missing.

Speaking with mid-day, Rebecca Psaid, "Since last six days, I have been searching for my father day and night in Sakinaka, Marol and Powai areas. I am worried about my father. I am worried about his condition."

She asked, "How did CISF officials allow my father to go outside the airport without any passport or ID cards? I demand the cops to show me the CCTV footage of the airport."

She further asked, "If my father did make an entry in the register book, then I want to see it."

Senior Inspector Sanjay Govilkar of Sahar police station said, "Dhramalingum Pillay is untraceable and our team is still looking for him. We are trying our best to trace him."