Kerala HC to examine if police inaction led to death of missing man

Kochi, Feb 6 (PTI) The Kerala High Court on Friday said that it needs to be examined whether police inaction contributed to the death of Bengaluru native Suraj Lama last year, after he went missing subsequent to arriving at the airport here from Kuwait.

A bench of justices Devan Ramachandran and M B Snehalatha also said that had proper protocol of a missing persons case been followed, Lama would have been alive today.

Suraj Lama (59) had reached Kochi on October 5, 2025 after being deported from Kuwait where he ran a restaurant.

He was deported as he reportedly suffered memory loss due to methanol poisoning.

He had gone missing since October 10, 2025 from a hospital here where he was admitted by the police and his decomposed body was later found

on November 30, 2025 from a forested area near the Hindustan Machine Tools (HMT) premises at Kalamassery.

The court noted that Lama’s wife had lodged a missing person complaint on October 8, 2025 at Nedumbassery Police Station and he was later taken into protective custody by the police on October 10, 2025, presumably under the provisions of the Mental Healthcare Act, and sent to the Ernakulam Medical College.

The police sent him to the hospital without realising that there was a missing complaint regarding him, the court said.

“Prima facie, had the protocol been followed, we have little doubt that Suraj Lama would be alive today because the police would have understood that he is a person missing and would perhaps have handed him over to his family.” “Alas, fate had other designs. But, we require to verify whether this is contributed by inaction from any authority, including the police,” the bench said.

The court termed it ironic that the police located the missing person without being aware that he was missing.

“The situation is certainly dire and we need to get to the bottom of why the police did not know when they took Suraj Lama into their custody on October 10, 2025 that he was a person who had been reported to be missing by his wife to the Nedumbassery Police Station on October 08, 2025,” the court said.

It directed the Station House Officer of the Nedumbassery Police Station, or the officer who was investigating the man missing case regarding Lama, to appear before the court with all the relevant files on February 9, the next date of hearing.

As the police, during the day, filed a forensic report confirming that the decomposed body was that of Lama, the court ordered that the remains be released to his wife and son.

The observations and directions of the court came on a habeas corpus plea moved by Lama’s son Santon to locate him. PTI HMP SA