By IANS,
Jaipur : Five days after Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Naveen Jain went missing from a restaurant in Rajasthan?s Alwar district, he telephoned his wife Sunday to say he was safe, police said.
“He called up his wife around 4 p.m. and assured her that he was safe. He also enquired about her health,” a senior police officer told IANS on condition of anonymity.
The official?s wife, Sunita Jain, had Saturday been admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) of government-run Sawai Man Singh Hospital here after she took ill.
Hospital authorities said Sunita was not having food properly since his disappearance and is suffering from acute anxiety.
The couple’s family members and a police team have left for an “undisclosed” destination to bring him back.
Though police are tight lipped about the destination, sources close to the family told IANS that Naveen’s phone call was traced to Chandigarh.
Jain, 36, was posted as commissioner in the state’s settlement department in Jaipur.
According to police, Jain had gone to a restaurant in Shahajanpur, some 150 km from here, along with his wife and son for breakfast Aug 30, and disappeared.
“While they were having food, Jain got up from the table on the pretext of making a call and walked out,” said Additional Superintendent of Police Sangram Singh.
Jain then left a note in their car parked outside.
“In the note, he repented that he had not been able to provide a house to his family. He said that he was going somewhere and should not be disturbed,” said the officer.
Sources said Jain was transferred to Jaipur in the first week of August from Baran, where he was posted as district collector.
Sunita earlier claimed that he was depressed because of the controversy over allotment of an official residence to him.
“He was depressed after it was alleged that he had taken possession of a government bungalow in Jaipur illegally. The truth is he had got verbal approval to move into the house and the process of written approval was being done,” she told reporters.
Jain, who belongs to Haryana, had also been district collector in Hanumangarh, Karauli and Rajsamand districts of Rajasthan.