Skandaraj (Skanda) Navaratnam had a pact with a close friend for their mutual safety. It called for the Cabbagetown resident to call if he was going to be away from home for any length of time.

“He had gone out of town a number of times and had always used this little pact,” his friend Jody Becker said on Sunday.

So Becker and others close to Navaratnam, 40, started to worry when he disappeared from the Gay Village without a trace three years ago, without making a call. They haven’t heard from him since.

Last week, police said Navaratnam is one of three gay men who have suspiciously vanished around Church and Wellesley Sts.

Also missing are Abdulbasir (Basir) Faizi, 44, who was last seen Dec. 29, 2010, and Majeed (Hamid) Kayhan, 59, last seen on Oct. 14, 2012.

Det. Debbie Harris of Toronto Police could not be reached for comment on the weekend but was quoted in Xtra, Canada’s Gay and Lesbian News, as saying there is no information that the three men knew each other.

Const. Tony Vella said on the weekend that Navaratnam’s case is being treated as a missing persons investigation, not a homicide. He was last seen on Sept. 6, 2010 leaving Zipperz bar on Carlton St.

After Navaratnam vanished, his friend Peter Maxwell went to police while Becker circulated posters of him around the Gay Village and Cabbagetown.

“He had an agreement with his friend, Peter Maxwell — the one who filed the missing person’s report,” Becker said.

“If Skanda wanted to be away for a little bit, he would call Peter to let him know he was OK,” Becker said.

One of the last times Becker talked with him, Navaratnam talked of his new puppy.

That pet was left behind when he vanished, which was greatly out of character for him, she said.

“He was a really responsible guy,” Becker said. “For him to just get a puppy and then to just screw off, that doesn’t add up. He would have taken the dog with him.”

Becker met Navaratnam from Zipperz bar on nearby Carlton St., where she worked as a bartender and he was a regular. There were no great changes in his life in the days before he vanished, she said.

“No new boyfriend,” she said. “He was into dating but didn’t have anybody brand new.”

She described her friend as careful and happy with his life.

“His laugh was just ridiculous,” Becker said. “If Skanda started laughing, everybody started laughing, even if nothing was funny.”

“Everything was normal, normal, normal and then bam! Vanished!”

Becker also knew Kayhan through Zipperz, but not as well.

“He was a little odd but in a funny way, not a bad way,” Becker said. “He was always a face in the crowd.”

She said she wasn’t aware if the three missing men knew each other.

She said she had been in touch with Navaratnam’s Sri Lankan brother and he is distraught.

They have an elderly mother with a heart condition, and the brother is trying to shield her from news of the disappearance.

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She said she wasn’t clear why Navaratnam moved to Canada. There were published reports in Xtra that he was a political activist.

“He never talked about it to anybody,” Becker said. “Skanda came to Canada to be safe and then this happened.”

Anyone with information is asked to contact police at the hotline number 416-808-5110, Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477), online at www.222tips.com, or text TOR and your message to CRIMES (274637).