The heartbroken and distraught family of Ranjit Singh Power from Wolverhampton, who went missing in India, have raised and are willing to offer £25,000 as a reward for their father's safe return to the UK.
The 54 year old hotelier and owner of the Grade II-listed Ramada Park Hall Hotel went to India on a business trip on 7 May. Normally Mr Power would contact the family twice or thrice a day, but they had not heard from him at all since he called his partner Angela Bir on May 7, after landing in Amritsar. Ms Bir said he sounded fine when she spoke to him and seemed 'totally happy'. He was due to return to UK on 14 May but failing to do so, the concerned family reported to police.
Fears for Mr Power's safety have been growing by the day, with concerns he may have been kidnapped or killed. His daughter Emma Power, aged 26, said: "Obviously we just want our dad back. Just anything that can help that really, we're helpless."
Miss Power said this weekend they had been giving lengthy statements to Wolverhampton police of anything that may help the investigation.
Indian media have reported that Punjab Police are planning to seek the assistance of Interpol, hoping to locate a man they want to speak to in relation to kidnapping Mr Power. However, the family said they have not had any updates like this on the investigation from English police. The family had seen the media reports, which suggested Indian police had questioned a few people in relation to their father's disappearance, but they did 'not know how accurate it actually is'.
This incident has also prompted the British Media to question safety of people travelling to India for tourism or business purposes. Every week 4000-7000 people fly to India from the UK. Such unfortunate case of kidnapping of an overseas national is rare, though not totally unheard of, motive being mostly financial or revenge driven. It is also mostly orchestrated by people the victim and family know closely, and are residing in Britain.
While Britons are naturally speculating on the efficiency of Indian police, in 2013 they had proved to be instrumental in sending a kidnapped British Tamil businessman and his wife home safe. Sri Lankan Tamil origin Mr Kanapathipillai Thavarajah and his wife Salajah from Edgware were in Chennai for a 10 day temple pilgrimage. They were kidnapped and held hostage in a village called Mandharakuppam in Cuddalore District, 100 miles from Chennai. Their daughter Dharshini received a call for a £300,000 ransom, and reported it to the Scotland Yard. She sent Chennai police a voice recording of the conversation, from where they traced the hostage location and led to the arrest of 13 persons. On information from Chennai police, the Kidnap and Special Crime Unit of Scotland Yard had arrested the masterminds in UK- Ajanthan and Ramesh Sornalingam, who worked in Thavarajah's business centre. They were sentenced to imprisonment for nine and seven-and-a-half years respectively in the Croydon Crown Court later.
While Mr Thavarajah's case ended on a happy note, such was not the fate of British student Suraj Patel, who went missing in 2008. In January 2008 he migrated to Gujarat and took admission at a University in Vadodara but went missing in September 2008. Believed to have gone to Goa and never returned, his grandfather Pushottam Patel from London went looking for him with no answers. The police had made some potential arrests in India when a friend sold Suraj's phone, but the trail went cold, after the suspects never turned up for lie detection test.
