Kochi: For a few nights towards the end of January, amid the constant churn of arrivals and departures at the Vyttila Mobility Hub in Kochi, a 39-year-old woman sat quietly, watching buses come and go but never boarding a single one. At first glance, she blended into the anonymity of the terminal, just another lone passenger waiting out the night. But her repeated presence over days and visible distress soon stood out.

When a security guard noticed that she had been lingering there during consecutive nights without purpose, he sensed something was off and alerted the police on February 1. That call set in motion a careful and compassionate intervention by the Kochi City Vanitha Police, one that would ultimately bring a missing doctor from Tamil Nadu to safety and end a desperate two-month search by her family.

A patrol team led by SI Sibi T Das reached the mobility hub around 10 pm and found the woman deeply distressed and emotionally withdrawn. She was wary of questions and repeatedly asked the officers to leave her alone, insisting that she had no family.

"At first, a few male cops came to the spot, but she was not cooperative. That's how we went there. Even when we asked her, she was not ready to open up," said CPO Veena, who was part of the team. Besides her and Sibi, the team comprised ASI Sharmila and CPO Amritha.

"She asked us to leave her and said she did not want to go to her family. She was speaking Tamil and English fluently. She refused to give any details about her family or place. She told us she just wanted to go to some spiritual centre and stay there. She seemed emotionally lost. Finally, we consoled her and convinced her to go with us, promising that we would later take her to a spiritual centre," Veena told Onmanorama.

Sensing that she was in no condition to be left alone due to her fragile mental state, the officers began searching for a safe place where she could stay. The team then took her to Snehitha, a government-run support centre for women in Kakkanad.

"We requested her to stay at the shelter for the time being. Once we consoled her, she started talking. But she just said she was a doctor and an assistant professor in anatomy. We could not find any ID card or phone with her at that time, but she gave us the name of the PG facility where she had been staying," Veena added.

That single detail proved crucial. The police traced the PG accommodation on Junior Janata Road, where the manager confirmed that her behaviour had been increasingly alarming. She spoke very little, ate just once a day, and was often seen standing alone on the terrace or wandering the streets late at night. She even spent a month's rent in advance.

The breakthrough
A search of her room led to the recovery of her bag, Aadhaar card, and a locked iPhone. Acting on instructions from Kochi City Police Commissioner Kaliraj Mahesh Kumar, the Cyber Cell traced an alternative number linked to the SIM card. The number belonged to her ex-husband, a psychiatrist in Chennai, who was then able to provide the contact details of her parents. Only then did the scale of the crisis become fully clear. The woman was an assistant professor from Chennai who had been missing from her family home in Nagercoil for months.

"The family had been in search of her for the last two months. Even a missing case was registered in Nagercoil Police station and the police even came to Kochi tracing her phone location, but they could not find her," SI Sibi said. "The family was very worried about her safety and we informed them that she was safe with us," she added.

Further enquiries revealed that before arriving in Kochi, she had been drifting through Alappuzha, staying in houseboats and lodges as her depression worsened. On February 5, the doctor's parents flew to Kochi. A few cops from Nagercoil police came too. The reunion at the Vanitha police station brought a painful and lonely journey to an end. "It was a very emotional moment. She broke down and the family too were in tears. They talked to each other and finally she agreed to go with them. They thanked us for finding their daughter and returned by evening," Veena recalled.

Reflecting on the operation, SI Sibi said the intervention went beyond routine procedure. "She was initially not cooperative and wanted to be let free. But we felt it was not safe as she was evading questions and appeared very disturbed mentally and emotionally. So we moved her to the shelter, eventually traced her family and finally handed her over to them safely," Sibi said.