Member of Prashant Kishor's Jan Suraaj party's communication team goes missing from moving train to Patna

A member of Prashant Kishor's Jan Suraaj communication team reportedly went missing while travelling from Jharkhand's Ranchi to Bihar's Patna on Monday.

Devpalik Gupta was associated with the Jan Suraaj Party as a digital communication manager and was an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Delhi. He was travelling on the Jan Shatabdi Express when he went missing from the moving train, news agency PTI reported.

Gautam Kumar, who is a friend and colleague of Gupta, told the news agency that they boarded the Janshatabdi Express at Ranchi railway station and the train departed at around 2:25pm.

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About 10 minutes later, Gupta told them he was going to the pantry car to get something to eat but never returned, Kumar added.

"Thereafter, we left our berth and went to the pantry car next to our coach, but we did not find him. Then we checked every coach, but he was nowhere on the train," he said.

When the train stopped at Muri Junction, they lodged a complaint with the Government Railway Police (GRP).

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"We are analysing CCTV footage of Muri Junction. So far, it is certain that Gupta did not deboard the train at Muri, the train's first stop after Ranchi. His mobile is also switched off," Sanjeev Singh, the Railway Protection Force (RPF) inspector at Muri Junction, told PTI.

A joint team of local police and RPF personnel is searching for Gupta, another official said.

Further details in the case are awaited.

Meanwhile, counting of votes for the biennial elections to eight Bihar Legislative Council seats is underway amid tight security. The results will determine the electoral fate of 90 candidates contesting four graduates' constituency seats and 60 candidates in four teachers' constituencies, he said.

Polling was held on October 23, recording a turnout of 82.85% in the teachers' constituencies and 53.42% in the graduates' constituencies.

The Patna, Darbhanga, Tirhut and Kosi graduates' constituencies had a total of 4.92 lakh eligible voters, while the Patna, Darbhanga, Tirhut and Saran teachers' constituencies had 40,253 eligible voters.