Bengaluru: Two months later, police still clueless on Kumar Ajitabh

Bengaluru: Two-and-a-half months since the British Telecom software engineer Kumar Ajitabh went missing from Bengaluru on December 18 and the police know very little about what may have happened to him, primarily because they are unable to track his last communication, most of which was reportedly on WhatsApp, the popular messaging App.

According to highly placed sources, the Special Investigation Team headed by Additional Commissioner of Police (East) Seemant Singh, which was investigating the mysterious disappearance of the 29-year-old techie, hit the wall after they allegedly failed to crack the communication trail of Ajitabh with his last contacts on WhatsApp. “It is crucial to find out who he was communicating with, especially the last few days before he went missing and the text of his communication with them. Most of his chats are on WhatsApp and it is difficult to decode them because of their end-to-end encryption. WhatsApp doesn’t have an India representative. The SIT had written to Google and WhatsApp to help them in the investigation. They are yet to respond to the official mail. The servers of the two are located in the US and further step to seek their cooperation can only be done through the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA),” said an official source, who didn’t wish to be named.

According to reports, Ajitabh was in touch with some online buyers for the sale of his Maruti Suzuki Ciaz car and it is believed that he was contacted by three potential buyers on an online seconds-sale platform, where he had placed the advertisement for his car on November 17. The last signal from his phone was tracked to Gunjur in Bengaluru’s suburbs. “So far, the police have not been able to verify if he had really gone out to meet the potential buyers,” said another officer. The investigation into the case has been handed over to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). It is being supervised by the HC.