While most of us would not even contemplate putting our feet into the Hussainsagar lake or Musi river in Hyderabad, J Hanumantu alias Shiva has been fishing out dead bodies from the water beds in the city since the last 12 years. The 32-year-old swimmer is now the person the police look up to whenever there is a body that needs to be removed from the city’s lakes.
The 32-year-old was also the one who recently recovered the body of 18-month-old Manvi from the Musi river. He does the job not for money but simply because there is no one else who would do it.
“I actually know the pain a person feels when one of their own kin’s body is floating in water. I lost my brother who drowned in a lake in the city 12 years ago and no one helped us. I removed his body from the lake myself,” he recalled.
The tragic loss of his younger brother Mahinder was what made him feel that no one else should suffer like him, and he hence decided he would take up removing dead bodies from the Hussainsagar lake, and other water beds as his primary job.
And how much does he earn from his job? “I get just Rs 300 per body from the police, but in cases of an extrreme emergency, the families themselves pay me anything in the range of Rs 5000-10000. I on my part do not ask them for any money,” he said, and pointed out that he received no money from Manvi’s family.
“They were all tense, and I knew that they were all sad,” he stated. Shiva however has to resort to various other odd jobs in order to support himself and his family, which consists of his wife and four-year-old daughter. “I take up any job I find, and I make about Rs100-200 a day. Making money is not my priority,” he said.
The 32-year-old however also has to consume liquor before he can dive to remove a dead body, as it helps him to bear the harsh water in the lakes.