AIZAWL, Nov 16 - Hopes to find alive a missing two-and-a-half-year-old boy of Vairengte town have started to fade after local people literally left no stone unturned in their hectic search in the last five days.
Apart from sniffer dogs from Mizoram Police and Army, more than 10 local soothsayers were involved in the search but all failed to provide sufficient leads to the whereabouts of Lalsiamthara, who went missing on November 11.
The soothsayers who claimed to know the whereabouts of the boy through prayers were proven wrong.
After a small fish pond from where the boy was reported missing was drained last week and nothing was found, another bigger fish pond, further from the location, was drained starting Sunday night, based on the statement of a nine-year-old boy who was with Lalsiamthara when he went missing. The nine-year-old boy said on Sunday that they went to the bigger pond and the boy drowned, and in fear he ran away. No trace of the boy was found even in the bigger pond when it was fully drained on Monday morning.
When pond-draining started on Sunday night, a sadhu from Assam reportedly said that the boy was abducted and his abductors were now frightened and they would return the boy before 7 am on Monday. He even told the exact place where the boy would be delivered. But this too did not happen.
Sources from Vairengte said on Monday that a Buddhist priest said the boy was now staying at a half-broken jhum hut. �We are now looking for this half-broken jhum hut,� said Zomuanpuia Tlau, a journalist from Kolasib who currently stays in Vairengte.
As per Mizo tradition, the community search for the boy would be called off on Wednesday which would be the seventh day.
Lalsiamthara was reported missing from the outskirts of Vairengte where his father C Zothanmawia, an autorickshaw driver, took him with an older boy. Zothanmawia told police that on Wednesday morning he took his son and a nine-year-old boy of his neighbour to that remote place to fetch fuel for his autorickshaw from a black market dealer from Lailapur. He said he left his son and the other boy there and proceeded towards the Assam border to fetch five litres of petrol.
When he returned, he found his son missing while the older boy was later found in a jungle nearby. The older boy told the missing boy�s father that he went to defecate among the bushes and told the boy to remain there and promised to return soon. He said when he returned, he did not find him.
