Archana Tiwari traced near Indo-Nepal border, to be questioned in Bhopal

Archana Tiwari, a 29-year-old lawyer from Katni who disappeared while traveling home from Indore on a Narmada Express train on August 7, has been traced to an undisclosed location near the Indo-Nepal border and is being brought back to Bhopal for questioning. Police officials said she contacted her family to say she was safe, ending a week-and-a-half-long search that spanned multiple states and prompted a high-profile review of railway and cross-border movement. The case has raised questions about why a routine Rakshabandhan journey ended in a missing-person probe and how investigators will determine the sequence of events.

Archana, a resident of Katni who had been living in Indore while preparing for judicial services examinations, boarded the Indore-Bilaspur Narmada Express on the evening of August 7 with the intention of reaching Katni. Her bag was later recovered abandoned at Umaria station, and she was not seen disembarking at Katni as the train continued. Family and police accounts from the early days showed a rapid decline in trace after the train’s stop near Bhopal, with the last known mobile activity traced to a railway corridor around Bhopal and Itarsi before the...