Sunil Tripathi Still Missing, Family Searching For Clues

Sunil Tripathi became the subject of national attention when he was briefly misidentified as the Boston Marathon bomber last week, but the family of the missing 22-year-old Brown University student hopes the attention can lead to clues of his whereabouts.

Tripathi went missing on March 16, disappearing from his Providence apartment without his wallet or cell phone. Despite the fact that he hasn’t been seen in more than a month, internet investigators on Reddit mistakenly thought he was the man responsible for Monday’s bombing that killed three and injured close to 180.

Police cleared Sunil Tripathi in connection with the attacks, releasing photos of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to counter the misinformation being spread by internet sleuths.

“We started seeing ridiculously speculative traffic,” Sunil’s sister Sangeeta said about the Facebook page dedicated to his disappearance. “We froze the page but monitored other social media sites and watched the horrible arc of events. The joke in our family has always been that whenever there is a little bug in our house, he picks it up and puts it outside because he doesn’t want to hurt the bug.”

The family and the Facebook page reportedly received threats, and Reddit later apologized for its part in falsely accusing Sunil Trapathi.

“The reddit staff and the millions of people on reddit around the world deeply regret that this happened. We have apologized privately to the family of missing college student Sunil Tripathi, as have various users and moderators. We want to take this opportunity to apologize publicly for the pain they have had to endure. We hope that this painful event will be channeled into something positive and the increased awareness will lead to Sunil’s quick and safe return home. We encourage everyone to join and show your support to the Tripathi family and their search.”

On the Facebook page for his disappearance, Sunil’s family wrote that they hope the attention leads to raised awareness of Sunil Tripathi.

“A tremendous and painful amount of attention has been cast on our beloved Sunil Tripathi in the past twelve hours. We have known unequivocally all along that neither individual suspected as responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings was Sunil. We are grateful to all of you who have followed us on Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit—supporting us over the recent hours. Now more than ever our greatest strength comes from your enduring support. We thank all of you who have reached out to our family and ask that you continue to raise awareness and to help us find our gentle, loving, and thoughtful Sunil.”