"If she wanted to run away, she could have done so"
A police case is underway after a Covid-19 patient disappeared. The unnamed discovered that she tested positive on September 4, 2020, a day after an alleged screening camp was held in Bommanahalli in Bengaluru.
An ambulance was sent to pick her up, however, she disappeared and her family have not seen her since.
Police have now said that the 28-year-old woman staged her own kidnapping. They have described it as a planned disappearance.
After the woman went missing, her husband filed a missing persons’ complaint.
The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) was informed about the incident, however, they said that they never held a screening camp on that date and that the ambulance did not belong to them.
The ambulance was reportedly a private van and no screening or testing was performed by the BBMP in that locality on the said time.
The BBMP went on to say that they do not pick patients without sending text messages with the driver’s phone number and details.
Also, government ambulances have GPS and end-to-end tracking is done.
Police have said that they traced the Covid-19 patient to Paharganj in Delhi.
In their statement, police said the woman and her husband had an argument which led to her wanting to leave her house. She sought her friend’s help to carry out the plan.
On September 8, 2020, the woman called the investigating officer to confirm that she was safe and would out the dispute with her husband.
The call was recorded and played to the husband who confirmed that it was his wife’s voice.
After the police investigation, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) accused the woman’s family of distorting and misrepresenting facts to the police.
On September 13, 2020, Captain P Manivannan, special officer for Bommanahalli zone, said that the department would file a criminal complaint against the family for “suppressing facts and misleading the authorities”.
Meanwhile, the woman’s brother-in-law, Vikas Kumar stated that she has actually been kidnapped. He said:
“If she wanted to run away, she could have done so before. She used to move around freely.
“In fact, on the afternoon of September 3, she even attended a job interview in Adugodi. She could have run away then.
“Who would go to the extent of setting up an elaborate fake Covid testing camp and a fake ambulance?”
Vikas previously said that four people wearing PPE kits came to their house on September 3 and tested the entire family and neighbours.
Two people came the next day saying the woman tested positive and had to be taken to hospital.
Vikas added:
“They took samples of our family members and also the neighbourhood.”
“But the next day, two men came in an ambulance, saying my sister-in-law was Covid positive and she had to be shifted to Prashanth Hospital.
“They didn’t allow her to take her phone, saying it was not allowed inside the hospital. They asked me and my brother-in-law to come to the hospital later.”
But when they went to the hospital, they were told that no such patient had arrived.
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