India, Aug. 25 -- The disappearance of a 19-year-old student from the Mumbai-Howrah Shalimar Express has set off a search operation by the Government Railway Police (GRP) in West Bengal and Jharkhand, officials said on Sunday.

The student, Arjun Patil, was travelling with his parents to Kharagpur on August 20. He had told them he had secured admission to the mechanical engineering programme at IIT Kharagpur. Hours before the train was to reach Kharagpur the next day, Arjun went missing after telling his parents he was stepping out to use the toilet.

His father, Rabindranath Patil, a schoolteacher from Jalgaon district, lodged a complaint with the Kharagpur GRP alleging his son had been kidnapped. But the investigation has revealed a mor...