Pradeep Kumar Trivedi has been looking for his missing 24-year-old son, Shiva, in the streets and ghats of Varanasi for the past six months despair and anguish writ large on his face.

Shiva, a 2nd year student at Banaras Hindu University (BHU) has been missing since February 13 prompting his father, who lives in Brajpur village in Bargarhi Khurd Post of Madhya Pradesh’s Panna district, to come to Varanasi to search for him.

Trivedi has been doing the rounds of the police station in Lanka, Varanasi district but has had little help from them. His plight prompted advocate Saurabh Tiwari to write to the Allahabad High Court Chief Justice stating that Shiva had been picked up and taken to Lanka police station and had been missing since then. Tiwari is an alumnus of BHU. A high court bench treated the letter as a petition. The court has since at a hearing criticised the police for not filing complete details of the case before it.

For the past six months, Trivedi has been staying in the Assi ghat area in Varanasi and eating at bhandaras. He roams around the streets with a photo of his son, asking passerbys if they had seen him somewhere.

Trivedi told Gaon Connection that he had called Shiva on February 13 and his son had complained of fever. He could not contact him the next day and decided to come to Varanasi on February 16 to find that his son’s room was unlocked and both his phone and wallet were there. Trivedi said though he had gone to Lanka police station to file a missing person’s complaint, the police had not mentioned anything about his son. ‘You keep on searching and we shall too,’ the police told him.

It was Arjun, a post graduate student at BHU, who had informed the father that he had seen Shiva being taken away by the police.

Arjun told Gaon Connection that he did not know Shiva was missing till he saw the boy’s photo posted on Facebook by some of his friends. “I immediately called Shiva’s father and told him that his son had been taken to the Lanka station. I also told him the number of the Dial 112 vehicle which picked him up.”

Arjun said on February 13 he and some other students saw a boy sitting along the drain near MP Theatre Ground. “We thought he was probably intoxicated as he did not talk to us and I called 112,” Arjun said. The police, who took him, told me that the boy would be taken to Lanka police, Arjun added.

After the intervention of the SSP, police at Lanka station admitted to Trivedi that Shiva had been locked up in a room (custody) and let off the next morning. Shashi Bhushan Tiwari at the station told Trivedi that he had no further information except that he found Shiva mentally ill.

Police alleged that Shiva appeared to be mentally ill though Trivedi refuted these claims and said his son “Sometimes suffered from high grade fever” but was otherwise a bright student. He claimed that his son had got admission in IIT Kanpur but could not join due to ill health.

Shiva’s younger brother Uma Shankar Trivedi, who studies at the Delhi University, dismissed claims of mental illness and blamed “police negligence.” He said the police should have informed the chief proctor when they took a student and also informed the university if they thought Shiva was mentally ill.

On February 22, BHU’s official Twitter handle said Shiv Kumar Trivedi, B.Sc., Physics student of the Institute of Science was missing from his room and that according to his family; his mental condition was not sound. Trivedi protested and said the tweet was incorrect as his son was not mentally ill.

“We are in constant touch with the police,” Prof. OP Rai, chief proctor, BHU, told Gaon Connection.

Meanwhile, Lanka police officers said a team had gone to Bihar and Tamil Nadu with Trivedi to look for Shiva but had no success. No reason was given why the police had searched for him in these two states.

Advocate Saurabh Tiwari told Gaon Connection, that “the role of the police in the entire case has been questionable. When the boy’s father approached Lanka police post, the police did not tell him that his son had been with them. If Shiva’s mental condition had not been sound, he should not have been left to his own device in such a situation. “

After the first hearing, Tiwari told Gaon Connection, that it had gone in their favour. The judge had reprimanded the public prosecutor and the police and said there could be a CBI probe if necessary, Tiwari said.

The Court has directed the Senior Superintendent of Police, Varanasi, to file an affidavit about the case and the steps taken by police so far to find Shiva. It also ordered him to be present before the Court on the next listing on September 3.

The judge said police had placed a 45-year-old mentally challenged person in Lanka police station saying he could be Shiva. A DNA and biometric test have been proposed to check his identity.

“Our fight will continue till a father gets justice,” Saurabh said.