The Aluva Deputy Superintendent of Police has submitted a report before the Kerala High Court on how Bengaluru resident Suraj Lama was reported missing from Kochi after being deported from Kuwait, since October 10 midnight when he was last seen leaving the Government Medical College Hospital, Kamalassery.
The report was submitted at the direction of a Bench of Justice Devan Ramachandran and Justice M.B. Snehalatha, while considering a habeas corpus plea filed by the missing person’s son.
The report says that Lama, a native of Alipore in West Bengal, ran a hotel business in Kuwait, while his wife and son resided in Bengaluru. In Kuwait, he was involved in a spurious liquor incident in August after which the police there admitted him to a hospital. After a 45-day treatment, he was deported to Kochi with 12 others, and they landed at the international airport here on December 5. Unlike other passengers, no phone number was mentioned in Mr. Lama’s deportation documents.
With no family members available to receive him, he was found loitering in the airport, after which the police directed him to a metro feeder bus in order to reach Aluva. Neither the immigration nor the airline authorities made arrangements to send him to Bengaluru. Details of how a deported passenger can be released (from the airport) and the procedures in this regard, need further enquiry.
The report said that the hospital authorities, on noticing that there was no bystander with Mr. Lama, ‘allowed him’ to leave the hospital that night, without providing any treatment, and he was wearing only blue trousers as he was seen leaving the hospital. His whereabouts after that are not known. On November 11, a decomposed body of a male wearing only blue trousers, was found in a deep forested area near HMT Colony. The identity would be known after DNA analysis results are out, the report said, adding that the immigration authorities should have taken steps to ‘keep aside’ such a person who did not have any contact number, although medical assistance was available at the airport. Moreover, the doctor who first treated him at the medical college termed him as a normal person, after which he was ‘set free’ from there on the midnight of 10 October, the report said.
Published – December 16, 2025 01:36 am IST
