A team of around 125 police personnel are combing the forest areas surrounding the Idukki district in Kerala, in search of Jesna, a second year BCom student, who went missing on March 22 while she was travelling to her aunt’s house.
The police personnel have been brought from three districts of Kerala- Pathanamthitta, Kottayam and Idukki districts- and have been divided into ten squads.
The team lead by the Thiruvalla DYSP Chandrasekhar along with 5 Superintendent of Police’s began the search operations around 9 am on Tuesday.
The search will be conducted in the forest ranges of Erumeli, Mundakkayam, Peerumedu and Kuttikanam.
On March 21, Jesna had told her aunt Sisily that she would be visiting her in Punchavayal. But Jesna did not make it - she simply vanished.
On March 22, Jesna set out from her home in Vechoochira. To reach Punchavayal, Jesna normally takes an autorickshaw to one point, then a bus to Erumeli, and then another bus from Erumeli to Mundakkayam.
Police retrieved CCTV footage that shows Jesna getting down at Erumeli. From there, she took another bus to Mundakkayam. However, the police have no leads as to what happened to Jesna after she boarded the second bus.
"It is not clear whether she alighted the bus or not. People have seen her get on the bus and have said that she was in the bus until the stop prior to Mundakkayam stop. Then, where did she go? Where did she vanish to?" asks Jeffy, her elder sister.
On May 28, the Tamil Nadu police found a burnt body of a woman from Chengalpattu highway in Kancheepuram district. The police had initially suspected that the body could be of Jesna. Four days later the suspicion was laid to rest after the Kerala police confirmed that it was not Jesna’s body.
The search operation in the forest areas of Idukki have been undertaken after the family insisted that Jesna would not have gone away on her own accord and could have been abducted during or after her bus journey.