Manikanth Kondaveeti
28-yr-old Indian solo tripper goes missing in Azerbaijan
Mumbai: A 28-year-old man, who had been on a solo trip in Azerbaijan, has gone missing for the last 14 days.
Manikanth Kondaveeti left India on April 26. His family sensed trouble when their WhatsApp messages went unanswered on May 12 and since then they have not been able to contact him.
Speaking to the Instagram page Humans Of Bombay, Manikanth's brother Dharan said he is a traveller.
Manikanth had been in constant touch with his family before he disappeared.
He would send pictures and take his family on virtual tours. They spoke every day till May 12 but then things changed.
"12th May, 7 pm was the last time we spoke. I messaged him later but it didn't deliver. I pacified myself saying, ‘Maybe he has no network',” Dharan says.
But efforts to contact Manikanth failed day after day. “We tried contacting him the following day and the day after…no response. I knew something was wrong -- bhai always kept in touch,” Dharan says.
The family then approached the Indian Embassy in Azerbaijan.
"They (the embassy) said, ‘He might be in the hills.' They assumed he was gallivanting and asked us not to worry. But how could we not?” asks Dharan. "We contacted everyone in the embassy until one said, ‘We'll send a search party.'"
Manikanth's luggage was still lying in the hotel room, it was found the next day.
“We accessed his Google account and found his location details for the 13th morning; he was at a hut on the outskirts of the city…that scared me," Dharan says
The family has been trying every avenue to find his wheeabouts. “We've contacted everyone – Chief Minister, Home Minister and the PM; we even circulated his pictures -- we're doing our best to find him. Every time Mom's phone buzzes, she thinks it's him. I keep praying that bhai calls and says, ‘I'm here only.' I know bhai is coming back; he has to.”
Dharan has also requested the people to help him find his brother by signing this petition.
He also urged the people who have contacts in Azerbaijan to help in the search for his brother.
Azerbaijan lies on the boundary of east Europe and Asia. Its capital is Baku, which is world-famous for its medieval walled inner city.
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