THIPPAGONDANAHALLI : A day after two actors were feared to have drowned in Thippagondanahalli (TG Halli) reservoir while shooting a scene for ‘Masti Gudi’, rescue teams are yet to recover the bodies. Teams searched the lake throughout the day and finally called off the operation at 7.30pm.
Early on Tuesday, a team of divers from National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) had identified the location and marked it out. The search operations began around 7.30am.
As the water is stagnant, the search was restricted to the point where Raghav Uday and Anil Kumar landed. The search was also extended to 15m from the point where the duo had landed.
The divers complained of poor visibility after a depth of 30-35 feet, and slush. As a result, they were unable to reach the lakebed. Later, a few members of Civil Defence joined the search operations with two underwater cameras. Again, the operations were stalled due to poor visibility. Fire service officials also took help of local fishermen to lay nets in the lake.
Six rescue boats and five coracles were involved in the search operations. Several nets were also spread across the reservoir in hopes of fishing out the bodies. Fire service officials also fear that the bodies might be stuck in silt, causing problems for the search teams.
Anil Kumar and Raghav Uday went missing on Monday afternoon after they jumped off a helicopter into the lake while shooting a scene for the Kannada film ‘Masti Gudi’.
Crowds caned
Several actors of Kannada film industry including Shivarajkumar, Jaggesh, Ragini Dwivedi, Nikhil Kumarswamy, Rangayana Raghu, Bullet Prakash, Ashok, Sadhu Kokila, Amulya and Yash visited the spot. Crowds thronged the reservoir to catch a glimpse of the actors and many cheered as they dropped by.
As a result, police were forced to resort to mild caning to control the crowd. Many actors expressed their hurt over crowds thronging to take photos and videos of them in such a situation. Entry though the main gate of the reservoir was restricted, many had gained entry to banks of the reservoir from unguarded entry points.