Rao: Kidnapped?

Calcutta, Aug. 23: Another young professional went missing from Salt Lake on Sunday and returned home late tonight with burn marks all over his body.

Madhusudan Rao Ibathula, a 25-year-old who came to Calcutta a month ago from Andhra Pradesh to pursue a career as a chemist, could not be traced after he stepped out of his flat in Salt Lake on Sunday morning.

A research chemist with Chembiotek Research International, located in Salt Lake Sector V, Madhusudan arrived in the city on July 20 to join his new job.

On Sunday, Madhusudan left his rented flat in AE block, which he shared with three colleagues, apparently to make an STD call from a booth nearby. He was wearing a cream shirt and black trousers and a pair of slippers.

When he did not return till the next morning, his three flatmates informed the office and a missing diary was lodged with police. Investigators could not establish that he visited the phone booth.

Late tonight, Madhusudan called up a colleague and said that he was at a Howrah police station. Madhusudan said he was abducted by a group and tortured but he somehow managed to escape.

But the police, which traced the call, said it was made from a Howrah public booth.

Around 11.30 pm, Madhusudan reached his Salt Lake home and was taken to the local police station. “We are questioning him. Things are still not totally clear to us,” said Praveen Kumar, North 24-Parganas superintendent of police.

In June, a similar disappearance had transfixed Calcutta when a London-based infotech professional, Rajiv Bhattacharya, vanished from Salt Lake a few days before his wedding. Rajiv was eventually found with torture marks but the mystery was never fully solved.