BALING, Sept 24 — The family of an elderly man, Sabari Baharom, 62, did not rule out the possibility that he may have been put under a spell before being spirited away to a remote place, causing the police search operation to reach a dead end.

Sabari’s youngest son, Muhammad Amir Hakimi, 25, said the family’s intuition was strong that his father was still alive and they are worried about his poor condition after being missing for almost three weeks.

"We believe that father is still alive, he may have been hypnotised. We as a family also tried our own alternatives to meet the mosque imam and religious people to hold a Yasin reading and pray for father’s safety,” he said when contacted today.

He said that since the story of his father’s disappearance became public, many Islamic traditional healers and "medicine men” or shamans contacted him to help in the search for Sabari.

"About 15 Islamic and alternative medicine practitioners including from Sarawak and the neighbouring country, Indonesia, claim that father is still alive,” he said.

Meanwhile, Baling acting police chief DSP Charan Ai Wan, when contacted, said police are still investigating the case and there was no latest development.

"So far there has been no development... The Kedah contingent police headquarters (IPK) is also helping to investigate this case,” he said.

Previously, the media reported on Sabari’s disappearance after he was believed to have left his home in Baling in a Proton Waja car, before the burnt vehicle was found by residents in Belantik, Sik. His family was informed about it last Friday.

Sabari’s mobile phone could not be reached, while his family detected the withdrawal of a large amount of money through several transactions from one of his bank accounts, two days after his disappearance. — Bernama