New Delhi: Three Indian citizens have gone missing after travelling to Iran, the Embassy of India in Tehran confirmed Wednesday. The matter has been taken up with the Iranian authorities.
“Family members of 3 Indian citizens have informed the Embassy of India that their relatives are missing after having travelled to Iran. The embassy has strongly taken up this matter with the Iranian authorities, and requested that the missing Indians should be urgently traced and their safety should be ensured,” the Embassy of India said in a statement posted on X.
Embassy officials are also keeping the families informed of the efforts being undertaken to trace the missing citizens. This is the second case of Indians going missing in Iran following their arrival in the West Asian nation in the last year.
Earlier in January, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) confirmed that three businesspersons from India who had arrived in Iran last December, had gone missing there. At the time, India had raised the issue with both the Iranian ministry of foreign affairs and the embassy of Iran in New Delhi.
With regards to the current case, an individual in the embassy who was familiar with the matter told ThePrint that it is “currently being followed up by the relevant authorities”.
“What is surprising is why the Indian embassy in Tehran has chosen to publicise this issue through the media,” this individual said.
The details of the three citizens have not been made public yet, and the MEA has yet to comment on the issue. However, according to an NDTV report, the three Indians are all from the state of Punjab.
The report adds that three Indians arrived in Iran on 1 May, and have since been allegedly kidnapped and held for ransom. The three were said to have travelled to Iran, with the end destination being Australia, via the Dubai-Iran route.
Family members have informed NDTV that they have since received calls for ransom from the alleged kidnappers. The family reportedly received calls till 11 May, following which there have been none. An agent reportedly involved in sending the three Indians to Iran has since been absconding. ThePrint has yet to independently verify these claims.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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