A family in Montgomery County is hoping someone will recognize their missing loved one after he walked away from a medical facility in Germantown, Maryland, a week ago.
Relatives believe Ankit Bagai, 30, could be in Virginia or D.C. by now, and their distress is palpable.
“Ankhit, I love you and miss you so much,” his mother cried in front of a search party. “Please come home.”
It was around 11:30 a.m. on April 9 when Bagai left a treatment center near Milestone Plaza.
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“The way law enforcement considers the situation, they believe there was some crisis that led him to walk out that front door,” Gobind Singh, Bagai’s brother-in-law, said.
Bagai’s family said he’s been prescribed several life-saving medications – and he’s now gone a week without them.
“Ankhit doesn’t have any ID, no wallet. He has no cellphone as well. Even his backpack that he did have with his additional belongings, he just left behind,” Singh said.
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On the day Bagai went missing, police responded to a report of a man in Lake Churchill. It was searched “using sonar, using drag hooks. They were out there for three to four hours,” Singh said.
Nothing was found there, and loved ones have stepped up their own efforts.
On Sunday they fanned out from a local police station to several locations, among them a shopping center near where he was last seen. His image was posted every few steps, in the hopes of generating a lead.
“He’s an intelligent person. He’s graduated from the University of Virginia. He can communicate, he’s approachable, he’s friendly. He is a bit – he’ll isolate. He likes to stay to himself,” Singh said.
Loved ones pray and act, and promise to keep up their efforts to augment the official searches.
They believe he could be in Fairfax County, where he has friends, but aren’t ruling out the District or Montgomery County, especially. They promise not to rest until he is with them again.
“Please, in case you see this and you have any idea of his whereabouts, please help us,” Singh said.
