A 19-year-old B.Tech student of G.L. Bajaj Institute in Greater Noida has been reported missing since December 8, the police said on Tuesday. Asim Hussaindar belongs to Jammu and Kashmir’s Lachipur village.
The matter was reported at Kasna police station by his father Aashiq Hussaindar, who reached Greater Noida on Tuesday after multiple calls to Asim went unanswered since December 8.
The incident comes nearly a month after a Kashmiri student from Greater Noida’s Sharda University went missing. Pictures of Ehtishaam Bilal wielding a gun with an Islamic State flag in the front went viral in Kashmir a few days after he was reported missing. Asim’s father stated in the complaint that Asim had told his mother during their last conversation that he had been debarred from semester-end examinations due to poor attendance.
“He was debarred from exams because he was suffering from dengue in November and we had called him home. We are really worried about him,” said the father.
Dismissing the terror angle, SP (Rural) Vinit Jaiswal said, “Prima facie it appears that Asim has run away from family and friends due to embarrassment over his debarment from exams. We have registered a missing report. His phone is under surveillance.”
Asim shares a flat with three others in Sector Chi Phi here. His flatmates said he had left home on December 8 to meet a friend but did not come back. He was seen online in a multiplayer game the next day. When Asim failed to return after three days, the flatmates informed his family.
His flatmate Iliyas said: “I called him at 7 p.m. on December 8 and he told me that he will be back within half-an-hour. Then he switched off his phone. The next day, I saw him online and called him on WhatsApp. He did not take my calls or respond to our text messages. He did read them though.”
The institute confirmed that Asim had been debarred from semester-end exams, which started on Tuesday, due to low attendance. “Asim barely attended any class over the past six months. He only had 43% attendance against the required 75%. He had not written the midterms either,” said institute director Rajeev Aggarwal.
