Bhubaneswar, June 3 -- A mystery surrounding the disappearance of a young man for over one-and-a-half years has taken a dramatic turn after police recovered a human skeleton from an abandoned canteen inside a defunct spinning mill in Odisha's Aska area.

The skeletal remains were recovered from the premises of the closed mill under the Kotinada police station limits in Ganjam district. Family members have identified the remains as those of A. Shankar Patra, the elder son of A. Laxman Patra of Narasinghapur village, who had been missing for nearly 18 months.

According to family members, Shankar had gone missing around one-and-a-half years ago. Following his disappearance, a missing person complaint was lodged at Kotinada Police Station, b...