A search is on to find a Kashmiri man who mysteriously went missing in the UAE since April 28.
From family, friends, and colleagues, to the Indian Consulate in Dubai and the Indian Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj have got involved in the search for Irfan Ahmad Zargar, a Sharjah resident, said a report published by Gulf News Society.
The 36-year-old unmarried man is an employee of Fast Link, a consultancy firm in Dubai outsourced by Du telecom.
Hailing from Srinagar in the north Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, Irfan disappeared after he had entered the UAE in his car from Oman, his relatives and colleagues told Gulf News on Monday.
Company sources said he had taken one month’s leave in early April to go home. They said they got to know that he had gone to Muscat and parked his car over there before flying back home, the report mentioned.
“Apparently, he went back to Muscat, took his car and drove to the UAE. He entered [the UAE], but did not reach his room,” said one of them.
A relative of Irfan said the latter had planned to start a business of shawls and other handicraft products from Kashmir in Oman.
“He had gone to Oman for that purpose as well. He had told me and his friends that he would be back here on April 28,” he said.
However, Irfan did not reach his apartment in Sharjah where he used to stay with a couple of his friends, Gulf News Society reported.
“One of his friends told me on Sunday that he did not reach there and asked if he had come to my place. His phone was ringing on Sunday morning, but it got switched off by evening,” Gulf News Society quoted Irfan’s cousin saying.
The company representatives said they had been told to wait for a week for filing a report to the labour office which is needed to register a police case. However, no police complaint was filed as of Tuesday, said the PRO.
Meanwhile, Irfan’s family back home –his mother and brother—took up the matter with the local politicians and one of them requested Sushma Swaraj on Twitter to help locate him.
The minister promptly asked the Consul General of India in Dubai, Vipul, to “spare no efforts to locate him.”
When contacted, Vipul said the Consulate had been in touch with the company and relatives of Irfan and followed it up with the local authorities.
“We have checked with local authorities and have been told that he has not exited the country and there is no case registered against him,” reported Gulf News Society.
