Among the mysterious and incomprehensible stories of people disappearing without a trace, there are those where questions are raised not even by the fact of disappearance, but by the identity of the disappeared person. What secrets were kept by people who simply did not return home one day?
We’re in Australia, in the five-million-dollar metropolis of Melbourne, the country’s second most populous city. In one of the suburbs, about an hour away by train, is Deakin University, one of the world’s most prestigious medical schools.
That is where a young man, the son of immigrants from India, Tej Chitnis, went every day for three years. He travelled from his home to one of the train stations in Melbourne, took the commuter train and spent the whole day at the university. In the evening, he would drive back.
On April 26, 2016, 21-year-old Tej left his home as usual at about 10:00 a.m. His father, mother and older brother had no idea at the time that this was the last time they would see him. Their son and brother were supposed to be back by 4:00 p.m.
The family and numerous relatives were supposed to be celebrating Tej’s father’s 60th birthday.At about 1 p.m., the student’s mother received a text message from him. Tej asked not to start the celebration without him and promised to arrive on time. In fact, the boy was not at the university at that moment, but was going as far away from home as possible.
Tej Chitnis did not go to the train station that morning, but headed in his car for the Melbourne exit in the opposite direction. He turned off his phone after his mother’s text message and never used it again. Surveillance cameras last recorded his car the next day on April 27 at 11:34 a.m., 52 kilometers west of Melbourne. Tej was behind the wheel. There was no one inside the car but him. Deakin University was east of Melbourne.
At 11:49 a.m., Chitnis’ phone appeared on the cellular network in the same area where his car was seen, but disappeared again a few seconds later. There were no calls or messages from it.
To date, no phone, car, or any other belongings of Mr. Cheatnis that were in his possession that day have been found. The young man’s bank card, which held several hundred dollars, was untouched.
The student’s parents sounded the alarm on the evening of April 26, when they did not see their son at the holiday table. The next morning, as Tej drove in a different direction, the parents arrived at Deakin University, still hoping their son had wandered off and spent the night with a fellow student on campus. True, this had never happened before, but there was hope.
The university administration, however, stunned the parents with the unexpected news. Tej Chitnis actually enrolled at the university three years ago, successfully completed his first year, but never made it to sophomore year. For the past two years, from 2014 to 2016, he did not attend university classes. He didn’t even have a campus pass.
Every day for the past two years, Tej Chitnis got up in the morning, left for “classes,” came back, and told his parents about his academic progress. He said the same thing to his few acquaintances at the stationery company where he worked part-time during the vacations and at the athletic club where he played basketball a couple of nights a week. The boy had no close friends and no girlfriend. Or his parents didn’t know about them.
The guy wasn’t very social at all. His social networking profiles were empty. Correspondence on the old phone, left at home, only with relatives or work. At the same time, everyone noted that Tej was a good-natured and non-conflictual person, always ready to help.
But why did he cheat on his parents for two years. Where did he spend the money he was given to study? And most importantly, what was he doing at the time when he was supposedly at university?
What happened to Tej Chitnis? The most obvious answers are that the young man decided to kill himself or run away from his family and start a new life. Though the reasons for such actions are unclear.
But then why, on the morning of the day he disappeared, when he left in a different direction, did he ask to wait for him anyway?
If Tej Chitnis really took his own life, where did the car go? Not to mention the body and personal belongings.If Tej Chitnis wanted to get away from everyone, why didn’t he leave or later give a message to his parents that he was alive? Is he really that heartless?