CHENNAI: City police on Wednesday recovered the skeletal remains of a man from the trench near a petrol pump on Five Furlong Road in Velachery.
Police said that the skeleton in all likelihood belonged to Deepak Bagdi from West Bengal, who went missing when the trench got flooded in the heavy rain last December, but the identity could only be ascertained only after a forensic investigation. A few engineers spotted the bones during digging work in the area on Wednesday.
The 200-foot wide and 60-foot deep trench was dug last year to lay the foundation for a building. The land plot lay between the bus stop on Five Furlong Road and a gas station. Owing to incessant showers, rainwater flooded the trench on December 4 and triggered the mud walls to collapse. With the ground caving under, a makeshift container, the bus stop, and a generator room collapsed into the trench.
Gas station employees Gunasekaran, Shankar and Naresh, migrant worker Rakul Bagdi and junior engineer R Jayaseelan fell into the ditch. While Rakul was immediately rescued by alert residents, the rescue teams later managed to rescue Gunasekaran and Shankar. The bodies of Naresh and Jayaseelan were retrieved after almost 100 hours of rescue operations.
The workers had then told the policemen that Deepak Bagdi, a migrant worker from West Bengal, was missing following the incident. However, they later believed that he may have returned to his native. The police now suspect that Deepak also fell into the trench that day.
Further investigation is underway to ascertain whether the skeletal remains unearthed on Wednesday belonged to Deepak.