Massive search operation on for deputy bank manager who went missing on New Year’s Eve

Lalnunmawia Zadeng, 32, has been missing since New Year’s Eve — the motorcycle he was driving at the time has not been recovered, but his wallet, driving license and ATM cards have been found in a dumpyard outside Aizawl.

What has confounded volunteers of the Young Mizo Association (Mizoram’s modern-day descendant of the tribal bachelor’s dormitory) and police is that Zadeng’s phone has occasionally been traceable (meaning it may be turned on at intervals or someone has topped-up his balance), and at least one man has said he saw someone closely resembling him walking about and asking for directions, even feeding him.

Another man found, in a dumpyard outside the city over the weekend, what appears to be Zadeng’s wallet containing his driving license, his ATM cards and several passport-sized photographs of himself and some others, presumably bank customers.

“Right now we cannot rule out anything,” said a senior police official overseeing the search operation.

Zadeng is a resident of one of Aizawl’s up-market neighborhoods, Zarkawt, and was deputy manager of the HDFC’s Lawngtlai branch in southern Mizoram at the time of his disappearance.

Police and neighbors say he had left home on the night of New Year’s Eve riding his sister-in-law’s motorcycle with the simple message to his family that he would be back soon.

As the New Year festivities wound down, his family got another message from him that they should lock the door because he would be staying over with friends.

He has not been heard from or seen since then, but on Monday a man said he saw someone who looked like him walking alone near the Chite stream east of Aizawl.

The man, a resident of the nearby Armed Veng neighborhood, said he fed him some food from his tiffin and, after having eaten, the person he saw asked him the route to Tuirial, a small village on a banks of a river by the same name about half an hour out of the city.

The man did not know there was a search operation for Zadeng until he got home and saw his pictures being circulated as part of the search.

“He told us he cannot be certain the person he met is the same person we are looking for, but we can’t take a chance of not following a lead that may be credible so we started searching for him at Tuirial as soon as we heard, which was late at night,” said a relative of the missing person who has been involved in the search.

Volunteers and police are currently combing the city’s outskirts as well as some neighborhoods but they have been unable to trace even the motorcycle, much less it’s last know rider.