Madhya Pradesh’s Government Railway Police on Tuesday said Archana Tiwari, the 29-year-old lawyer who went missing on the eve of Rakshabandhan during a train journey to her hometown, has been traced to an undisclosed location.
“Our team is headed to her location and will make contact with her. We will question her and then only reveal why she disappeared,” GRP Superintendent Rahul Kumar Lodha told The Indian Express.
On reports that Archana’s ticket had been booked by a Gwalior-based policeman who was in touch with her over the past two years, the GRP said only an investigation would shed further light on the case. “We are investigating the claims,” Lodha said.
Her family members have also said she made contact with them, but have refused to divulge any further details.
The disappearance of the 29-year-old had sparked a multi-state search and raised questions about what happened during what should have been a routine 12-hour journey home.
She is a lawyer practising at the Madhya Pradesh High Court’s Indore bench and has also been preparing for civil judge examinations. She was living in a hostel in Indore.
On the morning of August 5, two days before Rakshabandhan, Archana left her Indore hostel with her bag packed with festival gifts and boarded the Narmada Express.
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At 10.16 pm that night, Archana called her aunt and said she had reached near Bhopal. This would be her last known communication for nearly two weeks.
When the train pulled into Katni South railway station the next morning, her family stood waiting on the platform but Archana did not come out.
Her last digital trace was a cell tower ping near the Narmada Railway Bridge in Narmadapuram district, a location that later become the epicentre of search operations.
The search for Archana had become a coordinated effort spanning multiple states. Police teams scoured areas from Rani Kamalapati railway station to Itarsi and Katni, analysing CCTV footage from stations and surrounding areas.
