Mother of missing London student stuck in ‘bad dream’

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There’s no new year for the mother of a Fanshawe College student who vanished a month ago in Central Elgin.

Nidhua Muktadir, 19, was reported missing on Dec. 4. She was last seen the day before on Hawk Cliff Road about five kilometres northeast of Port Stanley, Elgin OPP say.

“I think I’m still dreaming, but this is a bad dream and I’ll wake up and find that everything is OK,” her mother Samina Nasrin Chowdhury said Thursday in a phone interview. 

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A surveillance image released by London police in December shows Muktadir wearing a black jacket, purple hooded sweater, pink and white scarf and white running shoes carrying a white backpack and a suitcase.

The area where Muktadir was last seen is about 40 kilometres south of London. 

Elgin OPP said in December the underwater search and recovery unit, West Region emergency response team and air search were part of the investigation into her disappearance.

The investigation is ongoing, and there aren’t any updates, OPP spokesperson Const. Brett Phair said Thursday. 

“I don’t understand how the police don’t know (where she is),” Chowdhury said. “This is a very unprecedented situation for me. I don’t know how to ask for help and I’m very frustrated with the police. It’s strange. It’s very strange.”

The possible reasons why her daughter disappeared continue to grow and haunt Chowdhury: from foul play to a boyfriend, a temporary adventure, being abducted, “taking her own life or hiding somewhere.”

The only clue Chowdhury said she has is a note allegedly left by Muktadir on her computer saying “she’s not coming back anymore.”

“I’m still concerned … because the daughter I know, she’s not … I mean, I don’t understand what her motive for doing this,” Chowdhury said. “But I’m still hoping to find her alive and safe.”

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Muktadir is in her second year of nursing at Fanshawe and shares a dorm with other roommates, her mother said.

Chowdhury, who lives in Toronto, hopes to come to London to collect her daughter’s belongings, but she’s been told by authorities she’s not allowed to take them yet.

“I didn’t get anything back,” she said. “I was told that I’m not allowed to go into her room because it’s locked by the police.”

Chowdhury said she last spoke to her daughter by phone on Nov. 29 while trying to arrange a dental appointment for Muktadir.

“It was a very nice conversation. She was not sad,” Chowdhury said. “She was rather happy. Usually, she was not very enthusiastic when she was talking to me on the phone. But on that day, she was very enthusiastic. So, I cannot remember any strange call.”

Chowdhury came to Canada from Bangladesh in 2010 when Muktadir was nine.

Muktadir’s father has come to Canada after learning about his daughter’s disappearance and also is very concerned, Chowdhury said. 

“I’m so devastated. I only want her back, that’s it,” she said.

Police and relatives continue to seek the public’s help finding Muktadir and ask anyone with information to call OPP at 1-888-310-1122, or by cellphone at *677.

bbaleeiro@postmedia.com

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