Thane: We need to find closure, says missing man’s family

Kunhi Krishnan Nair

On April 30, 2023, one Thane family marked a grim memory. It has been five years since Kunhi Krishnan Nair who would be 79 now, left his Thane West home on April 30, 2018, at 3 pm to go to his daughter Dr Sini Panicker's in-laws' home, a familiar 10-minute walking route that he took quite regularly. That is why Nair's wife Sushila was not worried when he set off. Yet, after he did not return for three hours, growing anxiety escalated to panic.

Krishnan has been missing ever since, now for five agonisingly long years for his loved ones. Krishnan's children, a son, Sudeesh Nair, a chartered accountant (CA), lived in Toronto, Canada. Daughter Dr Sini Panicker Muscat-based anaesthesiologist was overseas at that time. Krishnan and his wife lived at Hiranandani Estate in Thane. He had taken voluntary retirement from the Indian Air Force in 1979, after which he worked as a security officer at the Tata Cancer Hospital, Parel, for years. This paper had carried a report on September 18, 2021, about Krishnan simply ‘vanishing' after leaving home.

In that report, Dr Panicker had stated, "my father was leading a retired life, battling health problems like diabetes. He also had short-term memory loss. His mental health did deteriorate to some degree over the years, and we used to restrict his mobility when it came to going out of the house for this reason. He had a wallet with his name, telephone numbers and address inside. He did not carry a mobile phone."

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The family searched extensively through the years, going to Kerala and the North, filing police complaints, and giving advertisements in the media, clinging on to hope earlier that, "dad will just one day ring the doorbell and be standing there."

Today though, said Dr Panicker, "we do not have that hope. That has disappeared. We just want some indication that even if he is no more, where was he through these years? Did somebody keep him at some home? Was he well looked after? I comfort myself thinking that he was probably was well looked after. Even if he is still somewhere, he is doing fine." The family has posted announcements on social media, "just so that we get some closure. In the absence of closure, the mind is such that it will try to come to some conclusion on its own. Wherever he was, or maybe even is, if we do not ever find him, we do hope that we at least hear that he was doing well," signed off Dr Panicker.

If you can help...
For any information about Kunhi Krishnan Nair call Dr Sini Panicker on 7045189139/9820134314