German had no visitors at lodge

NAGERCOIL: Hotel Ganga Tamilnadu, the lodge in Nagercoil’s Court Road from where a 49-year-old German national, Sonntag Rainer Hermann, was picked up by security agencies on Sunday midnight is not a place where foreign visitors normally come to stay.Perhaps Hermann was the first westerner to live there, say the staff of the downmarket lodge, who describe him as an extraordinarily tall man who had no visitors during his prolonged stay of two weeks. He would leave his room in the morning and would invariably be back by 8 pm, a staff said. They had no idea about his food preferences or the eateries he visited. He never engaged the room boys for any errands — not even to buy bottled water.The staff had seen their foreign guest walking out of the premises and coming back on foot. They do not know what mode of local transport he used when he was out under the hot sun.They were rather perplexed by the sudden developments of the previous night when officials from security agencies landed there to make inquiries, check the register, take away the photocopy of Hermann’s passport from the files and subsequently whisk the guest after seizing his laptop and some other documents from his room.In the register at the reception, Hermann had mentioned his name as R Sonntag and given an Essen, Germany, address.R S Lal Mohan, a career scientist who is now a local conservationist and environmentalist, told Express that Hermann had visited Nagercoil in the past, too. He said that Hermann was a social worker, who could be reached for any social service activity.The office of Mohan’s NGO, Conservation for Nature Trust, is less than two km from the lodge. But no one knows if Hermann visited the office. It is also not know if he every visited Koodankulam or Idinthakarai, which are only a couple of hours drive away from Nagercoil.