Pastor Breaks Silence
‘We have been praying for them,’ says AOG Pastor
The wife of a pastor saw the Kumars turn left from the Assemblies of God Church towards the Navua Bridge on the night they disappeared. Pastor Devendra Sagar who was serving at the AOG Church in 2006, made the disclosure yesterday. The Kumars were members of his church. The Kumars’ car has been found in the Navua River not far from the church. Taxi driver Davendra Kumar, 42, wife Nirupa Devi, 32, and their children Dipshika Kumar, 9, and Edwin Kumar, 3, were last seen leaving the church at Calia in Navua in a white taxi at around 9.30pm on a rainy night of April 19, 2006.
One year later, the parents’ remains, identified by the only surviving daughter Deepika Kumar, were found at a beach in Pacific Harbour. Dipshika and Edwin are still unaccounted for. Pastor Sagar described Mr Kumar as a very quiet man and Ms Devi as a very devoted Christian. “My wife was the last to see them leave the church. “She said she saw them turn left instead of turning right to go up to their home at in Raiwaqa,” Pas- tor Sagar recalled yesterday. “When we got the news they disappeared we were shocked. We have been praying for them ever since.”
Pastor Sagar, however, raised his concerns on how the divers back then could not find the car despite numerous searches in the river. “Our concern is that how come an ordinary diver just wearing a goggle was able to find the car while going to dive for fish, when the Police divers had searched around in 2006,” he said. Current Police Commissioner, Brigadier-General Sitiveni Qiliho did not wish to comment on that 2006 event.