Overview

• Police say 29-year-old Archana Tiwari returned to Bhopal after being located in Kathmandu during one of the state’s largest recent search operations.
• GRP Superintendent Rahul Kumar Lodha said she planned the vanishing to keep studying for judicial exams after family pressure to marry a revenue officer.
• Investigators say she left the Narmada Express near Itarsi, switched clothes at Narmadapuram, and had her phone and smartwatch discarded in the Midghat forest to avoid tracking.
• Her route, reconstructed from CCTV and call records, ran via Shujalpur, Burhanpur, Jodhpur and Delhi before she flew to Kathmandu, with help from a 24-year-old friend and his driver.
• The breakthrough came when the driver was detained in an unrelated Delhi case, leading police to the friend’s phone and contact with Tiwari; no charges have been filed as legal advice is being taken.