TEPOZTLAN, MORELOS, Mexico (January 2, 2015)—25 year old Hari Simran Khalsa of Leesburg, Virginia went missing on Tuesday, December 30th while hiking by himself in the wilderness surrounding the Villa Maria Immaculada Retreat Center in Tepoztlan, Mexico. He is 5′ 10″ and weighs in at 170 lbs, and was last seen wearing a white t-shirt with tan shorts and a dark blue turban.
Mr. Khalsa and his wife Emily Adpurkh Smith were attending a retreat in a small Mexican town when he went missing. Mr. Khalsa sent a text message to his wife at 12:30pm on Tuesday with a photo and a message stating “Looking down on you!” The next and last text message Mrs. Smith received was at 2:20pm, and it stated, “I accidentally summited another mountain. Looks like I’ll be a little later coming back :). Save me some lunch if you can”. She hasn’t heard from him ever since.
Family and friends are working closely with the Mexican Authorities and the U.S. Embassy to field a search and rescue team to find Mr. Khalsa. Local authorities have been quick to respond, but search efforts are hindered by rough terrain and a limited number of knowledgeable guides to direct the search teams, and a lack of basic equipment such as binoculars and long distance radios. Efforts to obtain the GPS coordinates of Mr. Khalsa’s mobile phone from the telecommunications company T-Mobile have been unsuccessful as well.
Mr. Khalsa originally comes from Brooklyn, New York and has been running the Raj Yoga Center in Sterling, Virginia along with his wife for the last several years. Mr. Khalsa is a long-time practitioner of Kundalini yoga, and earlier made headlines in New York for teaching Kundalini yoga and meditation to activists during the Occupy Wall Street campaign. He is an alumni of Adelphi University in New York and the Miri Piri Academy in Amritsar, India.
The search teams are requesting support to raise the profile of Mr. Khalsa’s search and rescue efforts by sharing his story in news outlets and reaching out to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City to intensify efforts with the Mexican authorities.
A missing persons report has been filed with local authorities in Tepoztlan, Mexico and Mr. Khalsa’s family and friends have set up a website www.findharisimran.com to provide updates on his search efforts, and are using the #findharisimran for relevant posts on Twitter and Facebook. They are requesting that all media inquiries be directed to Mr. Shabid Singh Khalsa and Mr. Emilio Castello Defis, who are coordinating the search and rescue from Tepoztlan.
If you have any information on where the where abouts of Hari Singh Khalsa or if you find him please contact your local authorities or one of the contacts that are provided below.
Contact: Emilio Castello Deffis
Search & Rescue Coordinator for Hari Simran Khalsa
Phone: +52 1 5532251360
Email: emilio@spiritvoyage.com
Shabd Singh Khalsa
Media Point of Contact for Search Team of Hari Simran Khalsa
Email: shabdsingh@gmail.com
(Please support whatever you can in this Regard. Amar Jit Singh Chandi)
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Frantic Search for Sikh Man Who Went Missing in Mexico
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