GUNTUR: The search for missing medico Kosaraju Jayachandran has ended on a tragic note when the police retrieved his body from an irrigation canal near Duggirala village on the Vijayawada-Tenali road on Tuesday.
According to the Tenali Two Town police, the body of Jayachandran (35) was found nearly 2 km downstream of the canal from the spot where his car was found on Monday evening.
Jayachandran of Tenali town had been pursuing a super-specialty course in gastroenterology at the Gandhi Medical College (GMC) in Hyderabad.
Jayachandran used to visit Tenali every weekend. As usual, he left Hyderabad on October 18 for Tenali in his car. He was accompanied by two friends. On the way, he dropped his friends at Vijayawada and resumed his journey to Tenali. However, he did not reach home till late hours.
After enquiring with his friends and relatives and also searching for him along the canal, Jayachandran’s mother Annapurna and wife Gauthami lodged a complaint with the police on October 19 expressing doubts over his friends’ role in his missing.
The Tenali Two Town police took his two friends into custody and questioned them but couldn’t get any information on his whereabouts.
Meanwhile, the police got information that a car was found floating in the Krishna Western delta canal. They retrieved it and identified it to be that of Jayachandran’s but found it empty.
Then they requested the irrigation officials to stop release of water into the canal. As the water level receded in the canal, the body of the doctor was found stuck to a branch of a tree in a highly decomposed state at a point 2 km downstream of the canal.
The police retrieved the body and, after confirming the identity from Jayachandran’s relatives, sent it for postmortem to the Tenali area hospital.
It is learnt that Jayachandran had made attempts to kill himself twice in the past and had some marital issues. He had got married to Gauthami about two years ago and had a one-year-old son.
However, speaking to newsmen, Tenali Two Town inspector G Lakshmaiah said that they were suspecting it to be a case of accident as the road divider also got damaged near the spot.
It is said that he would have been in a drowsy state when the accident took place.