A second Banaras Hindu University student has been reported missing from the campus, with his father fearing “this could be something more serious” while urging police to be more proactive in their search.

Shiblu Ali, 20, a first-year BA student who had come to BHU from his home in Kaimur district in Bihar to submit some documents on August 27, has been missing since then, his father Sirtaj Ali said on Sunday.

A day earlier it had emerged that another BHU student, Shiv Kumar Trivedi of BSc second year, has been missing for the past six months after being picked up by the police outside the campus gates on the night of February 12.

Sirtaj, a grocer, told reporters that he lodged a missing persons diary with the local police with the help of the BHU authorities after arriving at Varanasi with his elder son on August 29.

“He had arrived in Varanasi from our village at Karamnasa in Kaimur district on August 27 to submit some documents to the university. The university had asked every hostel inmate to submit their health certificates and some other documents. Shiblu could have sent it by post but he preferred to visit the university personally,” Sirtaj said.

“Shiblu had called his elder brother Naushad Ali at 4pm on August 27 from a friend’s cellphone and informed him that he would be back home after two days. After that, we didn’t receive any information from him. His mobile was initially unreachable and later it was switched off,” the father added.

Naushad is also a student of BHU, enrolled in a master’s programme in Hindi literature. The brothers had returned home after the pandemic-induced lockdown shut physical classes.

“The friend has told me that Shiblu asked for his phone as Shiblu’s cellphone had no network. The friend has told me that he had not seen Shiblu since then,” Sirtaj said.

Shailesh Kumar Mishra, the sub-inspector of Lanka police station just outside the BHU main gate, said posters bearing a picture of Shiblu have been put up across Varanasi along with police contact details seeking information on the missing student.

“We have already put up posters of Shiblu across the city with our phone numbers, seeking the help of people to look for him,” Mishra said.

Sirtaj alleged that the police were not taking the cases of the missing students seriously.

“The police should take my son’s and Shiv Kumar’s cases seriously as this could be something more serious. I think the police have shrugged off their responsibility by putting up posters of Shiblu in the city. I fail to understand why they are not tracking my son’s mobile phone and looking for him more proactively,” he said.

This newspaper could not contact any senior BHU official for comment on the missing student.

Shiv Kumar, who hails from Madhya Pradesh, never returned to his hostel after the police picked him up on February 12, BHU had told Allahabad High Court. His father, Pradeep, has informed the court that the police had told him that his son had been released the next day as he was unwell, and that cops have made various claims since then.

Pradeep, a farmer from Madhya Pradesh, told reporters in Varanasi on Saturday that the high court had slammed the police for making misleading comments and threatened a CBI probe if they failed to produce his son, but not set a deadline.