Twenty-three-year-old Pramod Patil (name changed) was pursuing a diploma in Electric Engineering in a college in Beed district in 2009. There he met a group of friends and got curious about Islam. He began asking his college mates more about the religion and began learning Urdu and Arabic to understand the faith. Patil hails from a conservative Hindu family, and his curious questions about Islam were not entertained at home and he was reprimanded. In 2012, he decided to leave home and set off for Ahmedabad. He left his cellphone at home and logged out of all social media sites. His worried parents lodged a missing person's complaint in September 2012.

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