Prayers for techie missing after Brussels terror attacks

Raghavendra Ganeshan’s parents, based in Mumbai, are believed to have left for the Belgium capital

An auto search on a social media website on Friday showed that close to 50,000 people had discussed Raghavendra Ganeshan, the Bangalore-based techie who went missing after the serial explosions at Brussels on Tuesday. Even as the number of people offering prayers for Infosys staffer multiplied, his Bhayander-based family’s painful wait for news on him became longer. While his younger brother Chandrashekar who works in Germany was already in Brussels, his parents were believed to have left for the Belgium capital on Friday.

According to close friends Ganeshan’s family had last spoken to him less than an hour after before he boarded a Brussels metro which was blown off by a suicide attacker.

His mother Annapoorni Ganeshan further broke down after news reports suggested that missing techie could have been travelling in the central bogies of the train which had the highest casualties, said close friends. Annapoorni’s cell phone was not reachable ostensibly because she was in transit.

“The family is not in the state to talk. It has been three days and his name did not feature in the lists of injured or casualties,” said a friend who did not wished to be named.

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The friend added that Ganeshan took the same metro route from Merode to Park Station daily for his office commute. In fact he had told his mother that he was on his way to work just about hour before the blast.

Prayers poured in for the father of a one-month old all day on Friday. Infosys Mcity confessions, a group on Facebook, for instance, asked it members to offer a two minute prayer for Ganeshan’s safety.

Some colleagues and college mates had dropped their phone numbers on social media channels to gather information on him. The Indian Embassy in Belgium had taken the necessary steps to track him external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj had tweeted on Thursday but there was no update a day later.