MADIKERI: A two-year-old girl who went missing from the estate line-house was reunited with her parents following the efforts from the forest department staff, a pet dog and other villagers in Karnataka.
The incident was reported at Kongana village, located by the forest fringe at B Shettigeri village in South Kodagu.
Estate workers Sunil and Nagini, who are from a beekeeping family, arrived to work at a private estate in B Shettigeri five days ago. The couple has a two-year-old daughter, Sunanya.
As per sources, the couple left the child with other children of the estate workers near the estate line house when they left for work. Sunanya was left to play with the other kids when Nagini and Sunil left for estate work on Saturday. However, when the couple returned from work, Sunanya was missing. Meanwhile, the other children who were with Sunanya also did not know about her whereabouts.
A search operation was carried out, and the couple, along with other estate workers, started searching for Sunanya across the estate limits. When they could not trace her, the estate owner was alerted, and a complaint was filed with the Gonikoppal Police.
As the estate is lining the forest fringe, the forest department staff joined in the search operation, and the forest fringes were scrutinised.
During the search operation, the foresters also came across footprints of a tiger, and they found a half-eaten carcass of a wild animal by the forest fringe.
The worried team continued with the search operation, but in vain. Over 30 foresters continued the search till midnight.
Meanwhile, the villagers and B Shettigeri Grama Panchayat president Kollira Bopanna and his acquaintance Anil Kalappa joined in the search operation during the morning hours on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Anil pulled in his pet dogs Oreo, Duke, Lala and Chukki to the search operation. The dogs scrutinised the estate region, one of the pet dogs, Oreo, started barking loudly from the highest point of the estate.
When villagers rushed to the spot, Sunanya was sitting by a coffee plant in the estate limits, having spent the entire night alone by the forest fringe.
Pradeep Kumar, the officer-in-charge of Gonikoppal Police Station, raised awareness about the precautionary measures that parents should take to avoid such incidents.
Forest Department DRFO Sridhar, Nagesh, Diwakar, Manjunath, Kiran Acharya, Patrol Forest Guards Ponnappa, Somanna Gowda, Antony Prakash and others took part in the operation. The spot was also visited by ACF Nehru and others.