Kochi, Nov 11 The Kerala High Court on Tuesday directed a comprehensive statewide search to trace 58-year-old hotelier Suraj Lama, who went missing after arriving in Kochi from Kuwait on October 5.
The court also impleaded the state’s Anti-Human Trafficking Unit and the Social Justice Department as additional respondents in the habeas corpus plea filed by his son, Santon Lama.
A division bench of Justices Devan Ramachandran and M.B. Snehalatha took the step suo motu after the petitioner’s counsel informed that an impleadment petition had been filed but had not reached the bench.
The court instructed the Government Pleader to obtain detailed reports from the two departments and directed the police to conduct a complete inquiry into every shelter home, destitute home, and home for senior citizens across Kerala.
A status report is to be filed by the next hearing, which has been fixed for Monday.
"Please make a complete search of every shelter home, every protection home in Kerala. Email and message all superintendents with the photograph. Make sure it is searched. We want it done in a week," the Bench orally instructed.
In his affidavit, Santon Lama expressed apprehension that his father might have been trafficked or misled, or that he could have been admitted to a shelter home under an assumed identity.
According to the family, Suraj Lama, a longtime hotelier in Kuwait, had been hospitalised for alcohol poisoning and was reportedly suffering from partial memory loss and speech impairment.
Friends in Kuwait informed his relatives that he was later transferred to a deportation centre. A photograph of a flight ticket from Kuwait to Kochi dated October 5 prompted the family to lodge a missing-person complaint at Nedumbassery Police Station.
Despite independent inquiries, media appeals, and intervention by the Kerala State Legal Services Authority (KeLSA), Lama has remained untraced.
The Bench observed that the missing man might have been helped by a Good Samaritan to travel elsewhere, adding that searches might soon have to extend beyond Kerala.
"Our first priority is to find this man. We will get him,” the court said, expressing full confidence in the state police and its investigating teams.
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