CBI takes over missing MI officer probe

The CBI has taken over investigation into the mysterious disappearance of a Military Intelligence officer from Chennai eight years ago, officials said today.

P Gnana Prakasam, working as an examiner in Military Intelligence, a snooping unit under the Army, went missing on June 6, 2010, the officer's wife, Yamuna Gnanaprakasam, had said in a complaint.

Posted at the Army Headquarters here, Gnana Prakasam had gone to Chennai to attend a family function.

He later went to the central railway station, Chennai to pick up his son who, arriving by a train from Udhagamandalam, according to the complaint.

When his wife called him to check whether their son had arrived, the officer told her he was not in a position to pick him up and asked her brother to do so.

A few hours later, she had again contacted her husband and he said he was going to Tirupati and that he could not reveal anything further.

Late that night, she again contacted him but a person answered the call, saying her husband was attending an important meeting and would get in touch with her after two hours, the petition had said.

After that, the officer's cell phone was switched off and he went missing.

The officials said the CBI took over investigation into the case.

On June 18, the Madras High Court had ordered a CBI probe into the case in which the Tamil Nadu Crime-Branch CID had filed a closure report in a lower court in May after failing to crack it.

Justice P N Prakash ordered transfer of the case from the Tamil Nadu CB-CID to the CBI on a petition from the officer's wife.

The judge had said that under normal circumstances, the court would be relegating the petitioner to file an application before the lower court protesting the closure report.

However, the court finds that the missing person was in Army intelligence, therefore, a thorough probe by a central agency might bear fruit, Justice Prakash had said.