Four people of an advertisement and marketing firm in the city, including a female colleague, who had embarked on a trip to Gokarn Mahabaleshwar in Karnataka on Friday night, have gone missing.

Police claimed that the last location of all four was somewhere ahead of Khed Shivapur toll plaza on Pune Satara Road.

As per the information given by the Chatuhshrungi police, all four were associated with an advertisement and marketing firm in Kothrud. The four people who went missing have been identified as Pranav Lele, Chintan Buch, Sahil Kureishi and Shrutika Chandwani. Lele was one of the partners of the firm and other three were the employees.

“On Friday, Pranav told us that he and his two friends Sahil and Chintan would be going to Gokarn Mahabaleshwar for a three-day picnic. They said they would be dropping their female colleague to Kolhapur, since she is from that city and was planning to go home for Diwali,” said Ashok Lele, father of Pranav.

He said that on Friday around 10.30 pm, he left their Kothrud home for Baner in his car, where he picked up his three colleagues and at around 10.30pm left the city.

He even said, “I told him not to choose night journey and advised him to go in the morning, however, he did not listen to me.”

Pranav’s parents were worried when neither Pranav nor his colleagues’ phones were reachable on Saturday for a long time. The family then approached the Chatuhshrungi police and lodged a missing complaint. Now the case has been transferred to Kothrud police station since Lele started journey from his Kothrud residence.

As per the information given by a police officer attached with Chatuhshrungi police station, police tried to trace their phones’ location.

They came to know that their last location was somewhere ahead of Khed-Shivapur Toll Plaza. After that, the mobile phones of all four were switched off.

“We have informed the Satara and Kolhapur police over the wireless to trace the car and have given them the registration number of the vehicle. Till Sunday evening, our efforts did not yield any success as their locations could not be traced,” police said.

A team of city police along with the Satara and Kolhapur police are trying to locate the car throughout the route.

“We are also checking whether the car met with an accident en route, however. the possibility has been ruled out as no accident has been reported in the past two days in which a car was involved,” he added. He said that they have also put the phones on tracking.

A police team from Satara police have even started search operation in the Khambataki Ghat near Satara, however, they did not get any success.

Police said that it has been confirmed from the Khed Shivapur toll plaza authorities that they had crossed the plaza at around 2.30 am on Saturday and after sometime, their phones got switched off.

The Satara police said they have circulated the car registration number throughout the district and the investigations are on.