HYDERABAD: After more than 18 hours of a joint search by the police, fire and GHMC authorities, the body of a 25-year-old youth from Gudur in Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh, who accidentally fell in a Musi nala at Saroornagar, was retrieved from a nala at Chaitanyapuri. He had been suffering from seizures for several years, it is learnt.
Harish had arrived in the city on Saturday to visit his friends at Sharadanagar. As his friends were away and the rooms were locked, he kept his backpack near the door and went to a nearby nala (drain) to answer nature’s call. The rooms are located abutting the nala and the bathrooms are located at a distance. On his way back to the room, he was walking on the edge of the nala, and accidentally slipped and fell in the channel.
An elderly woman, who saw him fall, rushed to the spot and shouted for help but he had been washed away by then. Locals gathered soon and tried to search for him but in vain. Later, police were informed and a case of missing person was registered at the Saroornagar police station. According to Saroornagar police inspector N Ch Rangaswamy, teams from the fire department and GHMC’s disaster response force visited the spot immediately and launched a rescue operation.
But the teams could not go much ahead as the nala went underground after a distance of around 50 metres from the accident spot. Then the underground drainage was dug up at five locations where the rescue personnel, carrying oxygen, descended into the canal and searched for the youth but did not find him. The digging at Kodandaramanagar yielded around four truckloads of plastic waste but there was no trace of the missing man.
“We informed the residents of all the colonies lying along the canal and circulated a message to all police stations. On Sunday afternoon, locals at Chaitanyapuri saw a body floating on the nala there and informed us, ” the inspector said, adding that case of missing person would be altered as a case of suspicious death.
Harish disappeared in the drain within seconds, says his friend
Nagendra, a neighbour of Harish’s friend Rambabu, said, “He walked till the edge of the nala and suddenly fell down. He disappeared in the waters within seconds.” He came to the city a year ago in search of a job. His elder brother Chaitanya works for a private firm in Jharkhand and his mother lives alone near Nellore. His father Arjun died in an accident last year. In city, he did odd jobs for a few months, after which he joined a dental clinic at Ameerpet. He left the job around seven months ago and went back home to be with his mother. On Saturday, he came to Hyderabad to meet his friends.