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| Ibrahim Sharief |
Bhubaneswar, April 8: Ibrahim Sharief, the senior officer of the Indian Bureau of Mines who returned home in last week of March after remaining incommunicado for nearly four months had left Bhubaneswar because of heavy workload, police said today.
Sharief, an assistant controller of mines, used to inspect mines. He had inspected 25 mines between March and November last year and these mines are located in Keonjhar, Sundargarh and Mayurbhanj.
“He had left the city on his own as he used to be under stress due to sheer volume of work. Apart from this, he used to be under stress because of family discord,” said a police officer.
Senior officials of his office had, however, been telling the police that the 34-year-old engineer was not under any stress due to work. Sharief had joined the Indian Bureau of Mines on January 27, 2011. His family members had suspected that the engineer was kidnapped because of his involvement in mine inspections at a time when the alleged mulit-crore mining scam shook the state.
A police team, which had taken Sharief to various parts of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand to verify his statement regarding his stay in both the states, returned to Bhubaneswar yesterday. Investigation revealed that the statement given by the mining engineer was true. “He had told us that he initially wanted to commit suicide and had even purchased pesticides. But later, he changed his mind and reached Allahabad. He had stayed in a hotel on his name there and later visited various places, including Kanpur, Haridwar, Gangotri, Yamunotri and Uttarkashi,” said police commissioner R.P. Sharma.
Later, he reached Dehra Dun where he stayed in a hotel for eight days. During this period, he had changed the password of his Facebook account.
Sharief had taken a cash of Rs 12,000 with him and had told the police that he was working as a daily wage labourer in Dehra Dun for around two months after he became bankrupt. The police had earlier ruled out possibilities of kidnapping behind his disappearance from the city on November 25.