After 3 yrs, missing priest found in China
BHOPAL/GUNA: An ascetic from Guna in Madhya Pradesh escaped from a railway station on the way to a Gwalior-based mental hospital almost three years ago. The 45-year-old has now surfaced, apparently in China.
The revelation was made when an official of the Indian embassy in Beijing rang up MP police a fortnight ago to inform that Chinese authorities have found a sadhu, Vishnu Das Sharma aka Chanda, a native of Khuja village in Bajrangarh of Guna district. The official asked if they could find out if somebody called Bhagwati Prasad lived in the village.
“The official, who is from Katni in MP, sent us a photo of the priest on WhatsApp. It took us some time to locate Prasad and he confirmed it was indeed his long-lost brother,” Guna additional superintendent of police Satendra Tomar said.
Bajrangarh assistant subinspector HS Jadaun, who spoke to the embassy official, said Chanda went to his sister’s place in Rajasthan nearly a decade ago and became a priest at a temple where his brother-in-law used to work.
He spent time with sadhus and got addicted to marijuana or ganja. “He became mentally unstable because of his addiction, prompting his relatives to take him to the mental hospital in Gwalior for treatment. But he fled from Guna railway station. They searched for him for some days and gave up.”
Police initially thought the call from China was a prank but took it seriously when the official sent a photo of the sadhu and gave more details. Tomar said the official called from Kunming, capital of Yunnan province in southwest China, and told police documents such as birth certificate, identity card and missing report would be required to start the process for sending back the sadhu to India.
“The priest’s brother has furnished his ration card and missing report but they don’t have his birth certificate. The village sarpanch will certify his date of birth and give a document that will be sent to the embassy,” he SP said. Police were investigating how the sadhu suffering from mental illness landed in a foreign country thousands of miles away from his homeland.