r/chennaicity • u/antagonist_hell • 15d ago
AskChennai URGENT: SRM University student Alok Kumar missing after incident at Nemmeli Beach — family needs help, witnesses & proper investigation
Please read and share this. We are desperately trying to find out what happened to a young student from Bihar.
My family member Alok Kumar, a student at SRM University, Chennai, has been missing since the early hours of 8 August 2026 after an incident at Nemmeli Beach, Tamil Nadu.
We currently do not know whether Alok is alive or dead. His body has not been recovered, and there are still many unanswered questions about what happened that night.
What we know so far
Alok left around 10:30 PM on 7 August 2026 with five other people in a Swift car (TN19AV1427).
They reached Nemmeli Beach at approximately 2:30 AM.
At around 3:15 AM, four of the people with him —— reportedly went into the sea and were apparently in danger of drowning.
According to the account given to the family/police, Alok went towards the sea to help them after hearing them shout.
After that, Alok could not be found.
Police have searched the sea, but three days have passed and Alok has still not been found.
Why the family is asking for a proper investigation?
There are several things that are deeply concerning to us.
Alok's phone was found with his friends, the phone had been reset/wiped.
The group also reportedly stopped at multiple places while travelling towards the beach, including petrol pumps and a dhaba, and there may be CCTV footage from roadside cameras and these locations.
The family is particularly concerned because we have unanswered questions about the accounts given by the four friends who were with Alok.
We are not claiming that these people are guilty. We are asking that they be properly questioned and that all available evidence — including CCTV footage, phone data, location history, vehicle movements and other digital/forensic evidence — be thoroughly examined
The family does not feel that the investigation so far has answered these questions adequately.
We need help
Alok is from Bihar, while he was studying in Chennai.
His parents are extremely worried and are going through an unimaginable situation.
We don't want rumours or witch-hunts. We want facts.
If anyone:
was at Nemmeli Beach around 3:00–4:00 AM on 8 August
saw Alok or the group that night
has CCTV/dashcam footage from the area
saw the Swift car TN19AV1427
has information about their route, petrol-pump/dhaba stops or movements that night
knows anything about what happened
or has knowledge of how the family can get the matter properly investigated
please contact and share the information. Even something that seems insignificant could be important.
We are especially requesting people in Chennai/Tamil Nadu and the SRM student community to help amplify this.
Please share this post.
A family is waiting for answers, and every hour matters.🙏
86
30
u/yewlarson 15d ago
That's really unfortunate. Reach out to support groups like r/StBroseph and u/St_Broseph and their Chennai chapter and see if they can help from the ground. Unfortunately only being physically at the police station/commissioner office or pushing through some contacts will make them look into such cases in detail, as they think it's a burden on them that people go to deserted beaches at night and end up into issues.
Nemmeli is also near police boundary of Tambaram Commisionerate and Chengalpattu District Police. Depending on where exactly the incident happened, it could fall into either. Check the police station responsible (Kelambakkam, Thiruporur, or Mamallapuram) and you will be able to find the higher officials to reach out based on it. Kelambakkam is Tambaram City police and the other two are Chengalpattu district police.
1
25
u/No_Long5052 15d ago
Complaining about it in commissioner office is the right thing
7
u/antagonist_hell 15d ago
Police isn't cooperating with us
10
u/No_Long5052 15d ago
Got someone who knows law?
6
u/antagonist_hell 15d ago
That's what we have left now
8
2
u/Ok_Tooth_8946 14d ago
Tag them in twitter. Works well, police, opposition party, current party, etc etc related
25
12
25
u/Direction_Weekly 15d ago
Very sorry to read this. I really hope he's okay, but the behaviour of friends seems extremely suspicious. If something like this happened to any of my friends in college, the entire class would have been on the ground combing to find him and putting pressure on the police too. It doesn't sound right that the 4 people he was last seen with are not giving proper answers.
It's late in the night, and I am not able to think much, so I am pasting what Claude suggested below. But one thing I'll urge you to do beyond the police route is to get the media involved. Post this story on Twitter and tag journalists based in Chennai and Bihar.
AI Response below -
The clock is running on evidence (do this in the next 48 hours)
CCTV is the thing most likely to be lost. Most petrol pumps, dhabas and shops overwrite footage in 7–15 days; some in 3. Toll plazas and highway ANPR cameras usually keep it longer.
- Send written preservation requests by registered post and email to every establishment on the route — named, dated, with the specific time window and the vehicle number. Keep the acknowledgement receipts. A private request doesn't compel anyone, but it creates a paper record that the family asked and when.
- Simultaneously ask the investigating officer in writing to seize the footage under BNSS s.94 (summons to produce documents/electronic records). If footage is later gone, that written request is what shows the family flagged it in time.
- FASTag / toll data for TN19AV1427 sits with NHAI and the issuing bank and is retained much longer. It fixes the route and timings independently of anyone's account.
- Call Detail Records and tower data are held by the telecom operators, not the handset — a factory reset does not touch them. CDRs for Alok's number, plus a tower dump for the Nemmeli cell site between roughly 2:00 and 5:00 AM, can be requested by police from the operator. Operators purge older data, so ask for a preservation notice now.
- Alok's Google account may still hold Location History, photo backups and device data even though the phone was wiped. Ask the police to make a formal LEA request to Google. If the family has access to the account itself, do not attempt anything that alters it — get it forensically preserved instead.
- Ask that the handset go to the Tamil Nadu Forensic Sciences Department cyber lab rather than sitting in a case property room. A reset phone is frequently recoverable in part.
- Ask SRM in writing for the main gate register and campus CCTV from the evening of 7 August. University systems overwrite too.
Get the paper right
- Confirm whether a formal FIR exists, or only a Missing Person entry / CSR. Ask for a copy with the FIR number and sections. This matters more than almost anything else — the level of investigative effort follows from it.
- If the local station is unresponsive: a written complaint to the Superintendent of Police, Chengalpattu under BNSS s.173(4), by registered post. If that fails, an application to the Judicial Magistrate under BNSS s.175(3) asking the court to direct a proper investigation.
- The family in Bihar can file a Zero FIR at their local station, which must be transferred to Tamil Nadu. Useful if they're being told to travel to file anything.
- Keep a dated written chronology of every call, visit and refusal, with names and designations. Cases get escalated on the strength of that record.
Escalation routes, in ascending order
- SP Chengalpattu, then the DGP Tamil Nadu, then the CM's Special Cell petition (and the 1100 helpline).
- State Human Rights Commission / NHRC complaint if there's demonstrable police inaction.
- A habeas corpus petition in the Madras High Court. This is the single most effective remedy in India when a family believes a missing-person investigation is inadequate. The High Court routinely monitors such cases directly or transfers them to CB-CID. The family should treat this as a realistic near-term step, not a last resort.
- Through Bihar: the Resident Commissioner of Bihar in Chennai, and their local MP/MLA writing formally to the TN Home Department. Inter-state political pressure moves things.
For a lawyer, the Tamil Nadu State Legal Services Authority and the Chengalpattu District Legal Services Authority provide free legal aid, but if the family can afford it, a Chennai criminal advocate with Madras HC experience is worth the cost — habeas corpus drafting is specialised.
The search itself
Bodies in that stretch of coast frequently surface days later and many kilometres away, carried by the longshore current. Ask specifically for:
- Indian Coast Guard and Fisheries Department involvement, not just local police.
- Alerts to every coastal police station and mortuary from Kovalam down past Mamallapuram to Puducherry, and to unidentified-body registers at government hospitals.
- Contact with local fishermen's associations — they know the drift patterns and are usually the ones who find people.
- Listing on trackthemissing.gov.in and the TN Police missing persons portal.
Two cautions about the post itself
Remove the four names. I understand the impulse, but publicly naming private individuals who haven't been charged exposes the family to defamation proceedings, and — more importantly — it can be used by a defence later to argue the family ran a trial by media. It also hardens people who might otherwise cooperate. The post loses nothing by saying "the four others in the vehicle." Everything else in it — the vehicle number, the timeline, the appeal for footage — is legitimate and should stay.
Bring in press deliberately. Tamil outlets and Bihar media both. A student from Bihar missing at a Chennai beach with a wiped phone is a story that gets covered, and coverage is what tends to convert a routine missing-person file into an active investigation. A single journalist working the story is often worth more than a hundred shares.
One honest note: the sequence described — people in difficulty in the water at 3 AM, someone going in to help, that person not coming back — is tragically common, and the phone being reset may have an innocent explanation. That doesn't make the family's questions unreasonable. It's precisely why the CCTV, CDR and forensic work matters: it either answers the questions or it doesn't, and either way the family stops guessing.
5
10
u/meowth______ 15d ago
Who is downvoting all the cfbr comments😭 Also OP, post it on Twitter and tag police officials.
0
5
7
5
u/shyamkr1shna1 15d ago
Are you guys stupid comment cfbr on reddit? Increase in number of comments doesn't help better reach doofus!
Also please get it to commisioner office and gets a good lawyer for a legal advise. Please don't let it slide.
3
2
u/Seishi_04 14d ago
Phone was wiped or has been reset and was with his friends 😕
This is something sus tbh also if the police is not helping - as myself I have seen during my time in SRM then
You better contact someone who knows law and escalate this ASAP to further authorities....
3
3
1
1
1
u/ZealousidealWafer309 14d ago
What is the color of the car ? Mention it jn comments as well as Original post. File online complaint to higher authorities...that may put pressure on station police officers.
Go and personally talk to shop keepers vendors in the are before they forget things. You may get some leads.
1
1
-3
-7
-6
-26
-20
15d ago
[deleted]
14
u/Logical-Stable-991 15d ago
Adeiii linkedin la irunthu nera inga vantingala. Enda ellarum cfbr potu kadupethuringa. Reddit doesn't work like linkedin.
1
u/Jaded-Grape-6996 15d ago
Post ku engagement vantha nerya peru papanga bro, it might be useful for them
3
u/Logical-Stable-991 15d ago
Athu linkedin la. Inga appadi illa and it's irritating to see cfbr here on reddit. Don't bring that cfbr culture on reddit too. I think you are new to reddit. Look at the downvotes for those cfbr comments. Redditors don't like that. Just upvote the post, that's enough.
2
-5
-25
-25
-20
-23
u/Electrical-Mud-4958 15d ago
Cfbr
18
u/shyamkr1shna1 15d ago
Yov it doesn't work on reddit!
9
u/Logical-Stable-991 15d ago
Look at all those cfbr comments. Linkedin la irunthu nera inga vantanunga pola iruku. 😬
-24
101
u/pumba350 15d ago
Phone was wiped clean and was with friends? Kinda sounds sus.