New Delhi: Two Army soldiers, Sanjay Mahato and Santosh Thapa who had gone to the US as part of a joint exercise, have gone missing.
The rest of the regiment is back in India. The soldiers had gone to the US as part of the counter-terrorism Exercise Shatrujeet with the elite Marine Corps in California.
The US Defence authorities have lodged a complaint with the local police in California and efforts are on to locate them.
The Indian Army is not ruling out espionage or an illegal migration attempt. They have constituted a court of enquiry.
The exercise was part of expanding Indo-US defence cooperation and it was in 2005 that a team had gone to Camp Pendleton for the first time. The next year, US Marines came to India for an exercise at Belgaum.
Immediately, the authorities got in touch with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) for assistance in locating the two men, who were being treated on "absent without leave", the sources said, adding assistance was also sought from the Indian Consulate in San Francisco, which took up the matter with the local State Department.
However, with nearly 10 days having passed by, the Indian Mission was now going to take up the matter with the US State Department to press authorities in Los Angeles to help trace the two soldiers, the sources said.
For now, the Army is referring to the two as ‘absent without leave’.
According to the US Homeland Security, Indians account for nearly 2.8 lakh illegal immigrants to the US.
Recently, the Army authorities were in a tight spot after an illegal racket of forging official passports issued to military bands traveling abroad came to fore. The case was handed over to the CBI, which was finalising the investigations carried out so far.
(With Agency inputs)
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