The Hindu : Front Page : Mystery shrouds disappearance of Japanese student from airport

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 25, 2006
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Mystery shrouds disappearance of Japanese student from airport

Staff Reporter

Kota Shinozaki had landed in Delhi on September 3

MISSING: Kota Shinozaki

NEW DELHI: A 21-year-old Japanese college student has been missing ever since he landed at Delhi airport by a Cathay Pacific flight early on September 3 morning. Kota Shinozaki checked in at Immigration and then exchanged $100 for Indian currency at the Thomas Cook counter at the airport before he went missing.

Japanese Embassy Counsellor Shigeyuki Shimamori said here on Tuesday that the young man, about 165 cm tall with a fair complexion and thin build, was carrying a grey rucksack. "This was his first visit to India and he was due to return to Japan on September 23. His return ticket, in fact, expired on October 2."

The official said that Shinozaki's parents approached the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo at the end of September. The Ministrythen got in touch with the Embassy in Delhi.

The Embassy, he said, had lodged a complaint with the Chanakyapuri police station on October 17. It was then referred to the Station House Officer of the Indira Gandhi International Airport police station for further action.

So far, the Embassy official said, a large number of taxi operators, hotels and guesthouses in the Capital have been checked and their records scanned. But still no informationabout Shinozaki's whereabouts has surfaced.

According to Shinozaki's parents, Mr. Shimamori said, the young man was not very spiritually inclined, though efforts are under way to see if he had travelled to any Buddhism-related place in the country.

Shinozaki's parents would be arriving in Delhi soon to join in the search for their son.

The police here are hoping that some vital clues might emerge from the details of international calls, if any, made by the young man before his departure to India.

Also, his e-mail accounts might indicate who he had been in touch with before leaving Japan.

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