Diwali candles off at Surrey family’s home with no news of missing dad

Tagged with: Diwali no celebration for family family searches up and down Trans Canada Highway for missing man Meetu Mehay Mehay missing on way to Clinton Yashpal Mehay missing

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Yashpal Mehay with his family including two boys and wife Meetu

By Salim Jiwa

VANCOUVER, B.C. – Diwali is a festival of lights celebrated by hundreds of thousands of Canadians but Surrey mom Meetu Mehay says the candles are off at her home.

“There is no happiness in my life, there is no Diwali in my home,” she said Saturday. “If there is no happiness, how can I celebrate Diwali, how can I light a candle?”

Meetu Mehay has walked miles of highway between Surrey and Clinton in the B.C. interior looking for any signs of what happened to her husband, Yashpal who vanished without a trace on July 14 while he was on his way to Clinton where he owns a Petro-Canada gas station.

Mehay minivan

The latest search by her and family members was carried out on Thursday and Friday, again without results.

It the fourth time she has gone up and down the Trans Canada highway, stopping at every sharp corner, an embankment or wooded area for any signs of her husband’s mini-van.

She said her two sons, Barjesh, 13 and Bobby, 10, try to assure her that dad will come home.

“But sometimes in the middle of the night they come and ask when dad will come home,” said Mehay. “And when I cry they come up and say, ‘mom don’t cry, dad will come home’.”

“I have walked portions of the highway four times, hoping to see his van, some signs of him,” she said.

“I want the public to help me, tell me where he is, was he taken by somebody, what happened to him?” she said.

The missing man owns the Petro-Can gas station in Clinton in partnership with his brother-in-law Bhagwant Sandi.

Sandi has also made trips from Surrey to Clinton, searching sections of the highway on foot, particularly in areas where there are curves and embankments where the mini-van could have gone off the road.

Mehay departed Surrey on July 14 to go to his gas station, visits that he rotated with his brother-in-law.

RCMP St. Roger Morrow said Mehay stopped at two stores in the Fraser Valley; the Costco in Abbotsford and later at roughly 3:15 pm, the Staples in Sardis.

But the trail runs cold after that.

Police said he was driving a 2004 Mazda MPV, grey in colour with B.C. Plate 494KVK.

The Mehay family has offered a reward of $25,000.00 to anyone who can help find him.

Meetu Mehay said she will go to the Hindu temple in the evening on Saturday to pray for the safe return of her husband, or at least some news of what happened to him.

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