Army jawan from AP goes missing

Visakhapatnam (AP): An army jawan, hailing from here, has been missing for over a month after he left for Jalandhar in Punjab to join duty, police said today.

Gavara Srinivasa Rao (40), transferred from Roorkee in Uttarakhand, had boarded a train here on May 8 but did not report for duty at Jalandhar, they said.

Police and army officials have launched a search for the missing jawan, who is in the rank of a Naik.

Circumstantial evidence showed that Raohad got down from the train at Panipat in Haryanaon the morning of May 8, police said.

He had called up his wife using someone’s mobile phone to say that he had lost his wallet and phone.

The jawan had told her that he would contact her after reporting for duty, but did not get in touch thereafter and has remained untraceable.

Suspecting something amiss, his wife had later called up the army office in Jalandhar when she was informed her husband had not joined duty, police said.

She visited Jalandhar to trace Rao but in vain, they said. On May 15, she lodged a complaint with the Visakhapatnam city police but since Rao had gone missing in Panipat, the case had been transferred to the police there, police said.

Meanwhile, the army officials in Jalandhar also informed their head office and alerted the government railway police and the local police in Panipat area about the missing jawan, they added.