Taxi operator, 34, goes missing after call from client

On October 30 at 5.30am, Peter Thanare left his home for Kitengela to meet a client who wanted to hire his vehicle to transport goats from Kajiado to Ruiru.

The 34-year-old taxi operator in Ruiru was to proceed to Isinya later.

At around 12pm, his sister called his cellphone but the call was received by a man who said Mr Thanare had gone to buy petrol for the taxi.

The family tried to reach the father of three on phone in vain before it was later switched off.

This is the last time that they saw or heard from Thanare. The man and his vehicle have been missing since.

Peter Njoroge, an uncle to the taxi operator said the family reported him missing at the Kitengela Police Station.

The matter has also been taken over by the DCI Serious Crime Unit officers.

The family has visited police stations, hospitals and mortuaries in search of Thanare.

Last week, they got information from the police that the body of a man had been retrieved from a river in Machakos County.  The description given by the police seemed to match that of Thanare but after visiting the mortuary, they realised that it was not their missing kin.

It has emerged that the cell phone the said client used to call Thanare did not have any call log history since it was purchased.

This has made it difficult for the investigators to conduct any data analysis.

The DCI investigators have also visited an M-pesa shop in Makutano, in Machakos where Thanare is said to have withdrawn some 8,000.

The M-pesa attendant said the taxi operator was alone at the time.

The withdrawal was done at around 5.30pm on the day the man went missing.

Every new day the family of Thanare sets out to search for him.

Njoroge wonders why anyone would have wanted to hurt the man.

“Before he went missing, there were no threats to his life,” he says.

The family has since made a public appeal for information on the missing man.

The details have been posted on social media platforms including Facebook.