Zulfiqar Ahmad Khan, Zulfi as one would call him, is an alumnus of Hansraj College New Delhi and St John’s School Nainital. He is 48 years old and has an illustrious media career – he last worked as the COO of Balaji Telefilms. Prior to that, he was also the Managing Director of the OTT platform HOOQ and the Business Head and Chief Revenue Officer of Eros Now.
Zulfi started his media career as a Trainee with Star India and grew to be the Senior Vice President of Advertising Sales where he managed several channels like Star Plus, Star Gold, Star Sports, National Geographic, Chanel V etc.
Zulfi has been a keen sportsman, a foodie, an avid traveller, climber and explorer. His passion for cricket is well known to us all – every run, every ball, every pitch is discussed threadbare by Zulfi with friends willing to listen! The traveller that he is, Zulfi doesn’t just visit a country or a place – but spends weeks exploring the area, soaking himself into its history and culture. Last year he travelled deep into Kashmir and Ladakh and spent over a month camping and trekking with friends. Visits to his native village near Jaunpur were a treat for all his friends, because his Instagram and Facebook posts would regale us all with amazing stories of his village and the memoires he had of the place.
His trip to Kenya was yet again the explorer in Zulfi wanting to experience a new country. We enjoyed watching his social media posts of breath-taking Masai Mara and all the amazing food he was partaking of. In his telephone conversations with friends, he said he was returning on July-24th but planned to be back towards the year end to witness the Great Migration across the Mara River.
But after July-21st, there was complete silence. No Facebook or Instagram updates, no phone calls, and what worried all his friends the most – our WhatsApp weren’t showing as received. He had spoken to some of his friends just days earlier and talked about wildlife at length and advised them to visit this “lovely” place. And then Zulfi just disappeared. Without a trace. No contact with family or friends.
It’s been almost 80 days now and yet no one has any idea about his whereabouts. Local Police in Kenya are clueless. They have been asked by the High Court of the land to produce Zulfi but they have no idea where he is. There are scattershot reports in the Kenyan media where they picked up the wrong LinkedIn profile of another Zulfiqar Ahmed Khan and called our Zulfi a “cyber security expert.” Which would be funny if it weren’t scary. Most of the information on him in their media is completely baseless and without any proper research.
We don’t know if there is a serious search operation on to find him. We don’t know if the Indian Government has demanded an explanation from the Kenyan Government about their missing citizen. We don’t even know if our own High Commission in Kenya is helping in any way. With this note, we want to make people aware about who Zulfi really is, question his disappearance, and plead with our Honourable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi to intervene and ask the concerned Government of Kenya to start a search operation to get our Zulfi back home safe!
