Courtesy: Gulf Daily News

Bahrain, Dec 28: A Bahrain resident who went missing during a trip to the UK earlier this month might have made her way back to Bahrain or her native Goa, British police said.

They are now urging Indian maid Maria Pereira, aged 46, to get in touch with them so they can call off the search.

She vanished during a trip with her employer Dr Julianne Al Zeerah, wife of International Hospital of Bahrain (IHB) president and chief executive officer Dr Faysal Al Zeerah, to England in mid-November.

The mother-of-three had worked for the couple for several years in Bahrain and had travelled with them to their home in the village of Nettlebed, UK, on various occasions.

Pereira vanished on December 3 after being dropped off at the Church of the Sacred Heart in Henley-on-Thames, Oxon. Henley-on-Thames police had previously thought she could be dead and earlier carried out a search of the grounds where she worked and sent divers into the River Thames.

However, CCTV footage of the area near the church where she went missing leads police to think she could actually be alive and back in Bahrain.

"She is still missing, but as a result of our enquiries I'm really beginning to believe she could be back in Bahrain," Detective Inspector Chris Biddle told the GDN by phone.

"Although we've got her passport, somehow she could have got there.

"We just want to know she is safe and well."

The investigating officer added that his team had made some enquiries in the UK and now it was thought that Pereira possibly met a man on the day she went missing.

They also discovered she was carrying a bag.

Detective Inspector Biddle added that his team had spoken to Pereira's boyfriend in Bahrain by phone, but he had denied that he had been in touch with her.

"We are not going to pass on where she is, we just need to know that she is OK," he said.

"She must contact the police and everything will be treated in confidence, no location will be given to anyone."

Pereira is urged to contact the Thames Valley Police on + 44 8458 505505, say she is a missing person in Bahrain and they will call her back.