A 17-year-old JEE aspirant who went missing from his hostel in Rajasthan’s Kota on February 13, has been located in Himachal Pradesh’s Dharamshala after 11 days of intense search efforts.
Piyush, hailing from Bulandshahr in Uttar Pradesh, had been residing in a hostel in Kota’s Indra Vihar for the past two years while preparing for the IIT-JEE exams. His disappearance raised concerns among family members and authorities, triggering a swift response to trace the missing student.
According to senior police officer Amrita Duhan, the search operation spanned different locations, with teams following leads and gathering information about the student’s whereabouts. The breakthrough came when the police received intelligence suggesting Piyush’s presence in Dehradun. Eventually, teams were dispatched to both Dehradun and Haridwar to locate the missing student.
The Trackdown
According to senior police officer Amrita Duhan, the search operation spanned different locations, with teams following leads and gathering information about the student’s whereabouts. The breakthrough came when the police received intelligence suggesting Piyush’s presence in Dehradun. Consequently, teams were dispatched to both Dehradun and Haridwar to locate the missing student.
The police tracked Piyush to Dharamshala where he was taken into custody. Local law enforcement collaborated with Kota Police. The family members of the missing student accompanied the police team.
According to the police, currently, Piyush’s mental condition is reported to be unstable, and he is reluctant to provide any information. The police intend to bring him back to Kota, where he will undergo counseling, and subsequent questioning will shed light on the circumstances that led him from Kota to Dharamshala.
How He Disappeared
Maheshchand Kapasia, Piyush’s father, had said the last contact with his son was on the morning of February 13 when he spoke to his mother.
Subsequently, Piyush stopped answering his family’s calls and turned off his phone. Worried about his well-being, the family reported him missing.
The family’s anxieties grew as they discovered Piyush had not returned to his hostel room after leaving for a test. His family then travelled to Kota, where they filed a missing person report at the Jawahar Nagar police station.
In Kota, the family found out that Piyush had recently taken the JEE-Mains exam and achieved a score of only 13 percentile. The family shared that the teenager had been diligently preparing for the IIT-JEE for the past two years.
CCTV footage from the Kota railway station depicted Piyush, carrying a bag, as the last visual trace of him before his disappearance.
