A lot has come out regarding two Indian tourists and their local driver who were lost in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on a July night this year. After two months passed, nine policemen have been arrested in the case that India says it is “following closely”.
Zulfiqar Ahmad Khan’s last post on social media is a video of a roaring lion in Kenya’s Maasai Mara game reserve where he had been vacationing. His post was rather cheerful which he captioned as, “Magical mornings in Maasai Mara. Just imagine when the first encounter you have is with Simba. Breakfast anyone?”
A 48-year-old Indian media marketing professional, he had previously worked as the chief operating officer of Balaji Telefilms, a Mumbai-based television entertainment company.
His friends know him as a “keen sportsman, a foodie, an avid traveler and explorer” and a cricket lover.
He left his job in June and travelled Kenya for a month. His Facebook and Instagram feeds were full of pictures and videos of his time in the country: breakfasts in Nairobi, afternoons in game parks.
He called up his friends just four days before he disappeared, and sounded excited regarding traveling Kenya.
One of them was Rajiv Dubey, a Delhi-based marketing professional, who had known him for 24 years. He said, “He sounded very happy. He had spoken to some of his friends just days earlier and talked about wildlife at length and advised them to visit this ‘lovely’ place.”
Zulfiqar Ahmad Khan told them he would return home on 24 July and that he also wanted to come back to Kenya to witness the annual “Great Migration” – an even in which over a million wildebeest and herd animals migrate to the rolling grasslands of Maasai Mara.
On the night of 22 July, Khan disappeared. He was with another Indian man and a Kenyan driver. The other Indian was Mohammad Zaid Sami Kidwai, 36, who had also come to visit Nairobi on a tourist visa. He hailed from the northern Indian city of Lucknow, and lived in Dubai.
His description according to media tell him as an “information and communication technology expert” who led a “private life”.
His wife, Ambreen Kidwai, wrote a letter to the Indian High Commission in Nairobi in July. She said her husband had been visiting Kenya since February for tourism.
Enquiry about the men
She said that Zulfiqar Ahmad Khan was her husband’s friend, and both of them left the hotel to visit a bar at 10:45 pm on 22 July. They were both staying together at the Nairobi’s hotel.
Kidwai also said she had “texted” her husband around midnight asking when he would return. He texted back confirming he would leave in “15 minutes”. When she later called up her husband’s and the driver’s phone she received no reply and enquired from their mutual friends in Nairobi, but the two were not found anywhere.
Next day, Mrs Kidwai reported her missing husband and Khan with the police. She asked for CCTV footage of the bar and found the two Indians leaving the place close to one in the morning and getting into a Toyota sedan. When shown, she identified an abandoned car as being the one in which Khan and her husband were traveling.
Khan’s friends in the Indian city Mumbai said that no communication was made by him after 21 July. That included no posts on social media, phone calls. He was also not shown active online.
As the Kenyan police seemed to have made no progress in the case, relatives and friends of the missing Indian men gave a petition, after 70 days of no clue, that sought Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s help in finding Khan. The petition it has been signed by more than 10,000 people till now.
Progress in the Case
According to the officials, the local media said that the two Indians were in Kenya to help the election campaign of William Ruto, a 55-year-old politician who was sworn in as the country’s fifth president in September.
The reports also suggest that Nairobi police picked them up after which they went missing together with the driver.
Three months after the incident, Kenyan police claimed to have made some progress: nine policemen have been arrested since 21 October with the suspicion that this is a case of kidnapping and murder of the three men.
