The new search for Sumanta Bansi, who has been missing for four years, has turned up nothing. Let the police know. Thanks to a new tipster, there seemed to be new hope and a search was urgently launched, but without success.
It was Sumanta’s family’s greatest wish that her body be found. Her parents are currently in the Netherlands to the lawsuit against the two suspects of the disappearance.
In an emotional victim statement, they already said that next to justice, finding Sumanta was the most important. “How can you be so inhumane? My hope is that she is found so that we can say goodbye with dignity,” mother Sharmila Nanda said in court on Monday.
Hiker came with new tip
The search was held after a tip from a hiker. On the evening of the disappearance, February 18, 2018, he walked through the area where Sumanta disappeared. “He saw a man running away with a bag and a shovel,” explains police spokesman Erwin Sintenie. “That it matched some data that had come up in our research.”
The study was conducted in an area of 30 by 30 meters, about one-tenth the size of a football field. A special police team was deployed, the National Investigation, Recovery and Identification Team (LTOBI), specialized in large and complex missing persons cases.
The ground was poked with sticks, and dogs trained to find bodies searched meticulously. But after three hours of searching, nothing was found.
More searches
It is not yet clear whether there will be further searches. Either way, it’s another blow to Sumanta’s family, after yet another unsuccessful search.
The trial against the two suspects will continue on Tuesday. Then Manodj B. and his father Dwarka B. hear what punishment the Public Prosecution Service is demanding against them.