MARGAO: A Kerala man who was presumed dead by his family, who had even performed the last rites on a body they believed was him, was found alive and well in a lodge in Margao on Wednesday. 36-year-old Deepak had been missing from his hometown of Meppayur, a town in Kozhikode district, since June 2022.
Based on a tip-off, the Kerala police along with local police conducted a search in Margao and found Deepak holed up in a hotel room. Upon questioning, the man admitted that he was indeed Deepak from Kerala. During questioning, Deepak said he had purposely not contacted his family for the past seven months and had instead been travelling across various places including Mumbai and Punjab. While the reason he left his hometown is not clear, Margao police sources said that he would be sent to Kerala for further legal proceedings.
After Deepak went missing in June 2022, his family approached the local police station to file a missing persons report, and a search ensued. The Kozhikode police found an unidentified body of a dead man and assuming it was Deepak, handed it over to the family, who performed the last rites. They however had the presence of mind to order a DNA test, and the results revealed the man they had cremated was not Deepak. Following this, the Kerala police re-started their search for the missing man, and dispatched wireless messages with his description to all important police stations across the country, including Goa. The new investigation led them to the lodge in Margao.
