The life of an Uttarakhand-based certified mountain guide took a tragic turn when his possessions were taken from him while he was riding a Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) bus to Bengaluru. The man, a certified mountain guide named Mukesh Pawar, was traveling by bus from Salem, Tamil Nadu, to Bengaluru, where he had to catch a flight to Delhi. But during the trip, he discovered that he had lost $30,000, a laptop, a Samsung tablet, and crucial school records.
He reached out to Anand Sankar, a family friend and X user, who shared the incident on the microblogging platform hoping to get immediate police intervention. “I have been very sad and ashamed since yesterday at how the police in Bangalore treated an honest hardworking boy from my neighbouring village of Sidri in Tons Valley, Uttarakhand when he went to file an FIR because his belongings were stolen from a bus. Yesterday on arrival in Dehradun, I got a frantic call from Mukesh’s uncle who is well known to me, saying he needs help since all his personal belongings were stolen in Bangalore. Then I met helpless Mukesh immediately,” he said.
“He was in Salem, Tamil Nadu to install and certify a rope course for a client. After finishing the work, he took a TNSTC bus from Salem to Bangalore on the evening of February 12, 2024 to catch a flight to Delhi on February 13th. Since the bus was overcrowded, he had to keep his luggage on an overhead rack a little further back than where he was sitting,” he explained.
The user said that Mukesh kept an eye on his bags at all times. However, at the Electronic City stop, there was a lot of commotion and he lost sight of his bags. “When he had to alight at Majestic, to his horror, he found that both his bags were missing. The TNSTC bus staff were sympathetic to his loss. They tried their best to help. They pointed him to the nearest police station in Majestic. The police there outright refused to hear Mukesh because the last time he saw the bags was before Electronic City. Even with the bus conductor requesting they file a complaint via phone in broken Kannada, they sent Mukesh away,” he remarked.
Mukesh then went to Electronic City police station, where he noticed that officers “were drunk” and “not interested in even trying to communicate with him in Hindi.” The X user added, “Poor Mukesh went back to Majestic, again they shooed him back to Electronic City! Not one policeman offered to communicate with him and listen to his story. Mukesh went back to Electronic City, where he says the police finally made a diary entry after much begging and didn’t let him take a photo of the entry! He pleaded with the police to check CCTV images of the area where the bus stopped, they were simply not interested.”
However, he missed his flight and was left with only ₹ 600 and had to call his relatives to send him money to buy a ticket for the next flight. Mr Sankar wrote, “Mr BUT THE WORST: ALL his educational and professional certificates + his driving licence. This loss hurts him the most as he is a freelancer and every company he works with has to verify his original mountaineering certificate before expeditions.”
Mukesh cannot travel to Bengaluru, he said, adding that it would be “already a huge financial burden for him to visit all the necessary offices to get duplicate of every certificate.” Living in isolated alpine communities, the expense of transportation to every workplace is debilitating.
After noting this, Bengaluru City Police requested that people DM him with his contact information. Subsequently, Mr. Sankar shared an update on his post, stating that the police station had shared a copy of the complaint that had been filed. Complainant Mukesh has received a copy of the formal complaint, which was filed at @elecityps this evening. wishing for the best. This will, at the very least, facilitate the application process for duplicate documents.”
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