JNU PhD scholar missing for five days, police probe on

A case of kidnapping was registered after Pooja Kasna’s parents filed a complaint with the Vasant Kunj police station on March 13.

A 26-year-old PhD scholar has been missing from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus since March 11, police said on Wednesday, the second such incident to be reported from the New Delhi-based institute in less than two years.

File photo of JNU administrative building.

A case of kidnapping was registered after Pooja Kasna’s parents filed a complaint with the Vasant Kunj police station on March 13, deputy commissioner of police (southwest) Milind Dumbre said.

Kasna was a resident of Shipra Hostel and her phone had been switched off from the day she went missing, police said.

The parents, who live in neighbouring Ghaziabad, last spoke to Kasna on March 10. She told them she was going back to her hostel room after dinner, police said.

The parents rushed to Delhi two days later after they couldn’t reach her over the phone but found her hostel room locked.

Some hostellers told them the room had been locked for two days and they thought she had gone home, a police officer familiar with the case said. The parents spoke to her friends and their relatives but no one had heard from her.

University officials said they were trying to ascertain what had happened. “We have traced the student profile, now we are trying to contact her family to find out the exact information,” dean of students Umesh Kadam said.

This is the second case of a JNU hostel student going missing in recent times.

Najeeb Ahmad, a first year MSc biotechnology student, has not been seen since an alleged brawl with Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad members at Mahi-Mandavi Hostel on October 15, 2016.

The case, which generated a lot of political heat, was transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation but the agency has failed to make a headway.

(with inputs from Mariyam Alavi)