Your beloved son, an intelligent Ivy-League student, suddenly disappears. He walks out of the door of his apartment one evening and is gone. He left his phone, his wallet, his ID. He left no messages or explanations, no way to get in touch with him. He is just gone.
Imagine...
Your efforts to find him have been fruitless. Police, internet, media all useless. You even make a video, remembering good times as he was inclined to sadness/depression, and post it to a website you have put up in hopes that he will see it and will be inspired to call home, to let you know he is fine. Until he returns your world is shattered.
Imagine...
A horrific event of evil and hatred occurs. It sends the entire country into a tailspin. How could someone be so cruel?! So evil?! Who has done this terrible thing? Who could do so a thing?
And then, just when you thought it couldn't get worse...the unthinkable happens. Suddenly, it is your son's name being connected to these horrible events! How could anyone think that?! Never... Not possible!
And you are correct, it wasn't him. But though the evil doers are found, your son is not. He is still unaccounted for, missing. Apologies are offered, but yet nothing changes. All eyes are on the evil doers, but no one is helping find your son...
This is what has occurred to the family of Sunil "Sunny" Tripathi. On March 16th, Sunil left the apartment he shared with friends in Providence and walked into the night. He never returned. When the horrific events at the 2013 Boston Marathon occurred, one of the first names to hit the Twitter waves, Facebook and other social media...was Sunil's. School mates said the bombers "looked like him" and those small comments spread, and spread, and spread. And though it was ultimately retracted and apologies made...Sunali has not yet been found and his family has nothing to look upon but days worth of accusatory twitter feeds naming their son as a bomber.
"The story surrounding the false identification of Sunil Tripathi is a cautionary reminder of how the pervasive reach of social media can be used for both good and bad. It is an insight, too, of how prejudice might cloud judgement and reason." - The Independent, Andrew Buncombe
Update: Sadly, the body was pulled from a Rhode Island river a couple of days ago was, in fact, this boy who had such a future ahead of him, this young man mistaken for another.
Please pray for his family and friends.
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