Eight days on, family retains hope of finding Alappuzha youth missing from ship

Alappuzha: The family of Vishnu Babu (25), who went missing eight days ago from the ship SSI Resolute on its way from Odisha to China, still harbours the hope of finding him.

K C Venugopal, Alappuzha MP, has taken up the matter with the Ministry of External Affairs and the family is hopeful that Malaysian authorities will resume the search over a wider area under pressure from the Indian government.

“Only a small area has been searched till now, and they called off the search 96 hours after the boy went missing. That is grossly inadequate. The search has to be expanded to more areas. For this the Central Government has to interfere,” said Vishnu's father, Babu Karunakaran.

“The first search was conducted under the assumption that the Vishnu went missing at 9.30 pm last Tuesday. That is ridiculous. He could have gone missing anytime between 9.30 at night and 8 in the morning. The ship was passing through the Malacca Strait at this time. This means Vishnu may be in the territorial waters of Indonesia as well. Only a proper search will reveal the truth.”

On the night he went missing, Vishnu called his mother from the phone of a friend as he faced connectivity issues. According to the family, Vishnu sounded cheerful. The crew realised he was missing when he failed to report for duty the next day.

Karunakaran said Vishnu's only friend onboard was Arumugham, a native of Tamil Nadu. There is no hint of Vishnu having any problems onboard the ship. According to the family, Vishnu worked as an assistant to the Engine Officer. The pay was good and the facilities provided were adequate. He had joined the ship crew last May as a trainee wiper.

“His only complaint was that he had to relinquish his cabin in the lower deck and move three storeys above to make space for a few new crew members. His new cabin was near the propeller and the noise made sleeping difficult. But it wasn't a major issue for him,” said Karunakaran.

The Malaysian authorities searched 45 square kilometres. While Vishnu's family was informed about his missing on Wednesday itself, they chose to keep quiet for the first two days, Karunakaran alleged.

“After the third day, the officials told us they were calling off the search as per protocol. They told us there was no pressure from the Indian government to find Vishnu. It was only then we decided to act. In hindsight, we shouldn't have waited for two days to move the relevant authorities.”