A Pietermaritzburg mother’s desperate search for her missing son ended in tragedy when his body was recovered in a Durban morgue a week after he went missing.

Tracy Samjhawan recounted a torturous week searching for her son, Vijesh, that resulted in another search for closure around the reason for his death after his body wound up in the Phoenix Mortuary.

When The Witness spoke to Tracy, the mother of slain Vijesh Harilal Samjhawan (26), she could not hold back the tears as she recounted the story of her son’s baffling disappearance and how the search led her to find out about his tragic death.

She said her son had moved to Durban last year when the company he was working for relocated there. When her son did not return her calls on March 29, she started to worry.

“Normally he phones me during the day because I am at home. He will call and ask me if I ate and check if I’m okay. When he did not answer this time, I didn’t want to be a nagging mother, so I did not call again.”

The last conversation she had with him was at 19:50 on March 28.

Mother recalls the last conversation

“I tried to phone him the next day, but I could not get hold of him. His phone kept on ringing. I tried all his numbers, the old ones and the new ones, and I thought maybe his lights were out and that is why I could not get through.”

Samjhawan said her intuition was telling her that something was wrong.

“The next day, when there was still no answer from him, I began to feel that something was wrong. I couldn’t sleep, I was so stressed
Samjhawan and her brother travelled to Durban on March 30.”

“When we arrived at the place he was staying at, we saw that the patio doors were open, and he wasn’t in the house. It was unlike him to leave doors open and go, unless he was in a rush,” she said.

Samjhawan added that they could tell from CCTV footage that he jumped into an Uber. She later discovered he had gone to a shop.

Missing person

Samjhawan was then advised to file a missing person’s report.

“At the time, the worst thought crossed my mind, that he could have been killed or kidnapped, so I went to file a missing person report. I was still phoning his number, but there was no response.

“We would phone the police on a daily basis to find out if they had any news to give us any feedback,” she said, adding that she had hoped it was a hostage situation, as there was more of a chance to get him back.

“My family wanted to make flyers and get media attention in hopes of finding him. Everybody was trying to find him. I was worried because everything was going through my mind. Even if there was a ransom involved, we would pay it to make sure that he comes back alive.

“All this time, I did not know that he was lying dead in a mortuary, for four days at that point,” she said.

She then received the dreaded call from the police to come and identify an unknown body.

Samjhawan added that her family had to identify her son’s body by his tattoos due to injuries he had sustained.