Anurag Jagtap, a student at Indian School of Mines (ISM) Dhanbad, has been missing since December 18, 2015. Anurag last spoke to his parents on December 18 at 9:30 PM, informing them that he would be boarding a 9:50 PM superfast train from Howrah junction to reach Pune two days later.

Originally from Pune, Anurag is a second year Mathematics and Computing student at ISM. His friends told PaGaLGuY, “We dropped him at Dhanbad Junction on December 18, from where he took an afternoon train to Howrah Junction. He called one of us at 8:30 PM to inform that he had reached Howrah safely. We did not hear from him after that. He was supposed to catch a 9:50 PM train to Pune.”

The month of December marks a festival of holidays in the major engineering colleges of India, including ISM. Anurag planned his holiday break during this period, and booked a ticket to Pune, his hometown, for December 10, 2015. Unfortunately, due to some work in college he had to cancel his confirmed ticket. Later, he failed in booking a tatkal ticket to Pune on December 16 or 17. After his work was completed, he decided to travel to Pune on an unreserved ticket because he did not want his holidays to go waste.

PaGaLGuY spoke to Varsha Bharat Jagtap, Anurag’s mother. She said, “Anurag called me at 9:30 PM to inform that he is taking a general ticket, and will pay a fine to the train ticket checker to get a seat. I tried calling him at 10:30 PM to know if he was comfortable and got a seat, but his number was not reachable.”

She continued, “I tried calling him so many times after that but his number was never reachable. His train was scheduled to reach Pune on December 20, 2015. But when he did not reach home, we filed a missing person report with Pune Government Railway Police (GRP) on December 21.”

“None of us have heard from Anurag in the past nine days. We are in constant touch with Mrs Jagtap. Whenever she needs, we are here to support her,” said one of Anurag’s friends.

Anurag’s parents reached out to the Howrah GRP on December 25 to probe into the matter. But there are no confirmations to support any notion: whether Anurag was able to board the Howrah-Pune train (Azad Hind Express), if he got down in the middle of his journey, or if he even reached Pune station.

The question remains: from where and when is Anurag missing?