Varuna: Death knell for some

86 people have lost their lives in a span of six years at this canal

According to statistics available 86 people have lost their lives in six years from January 2006 to August 31. In September too, four persons including a six-year-old boy have lost their lives, according to details available at the jurisdictional south police station.
Of the total length of 135 km, 18 km of the canal falls under the jurisdiction (including Yelwal and Jayapura sub-police stations) of the same station.

A police officer on condition of anonymity told Deccan Herald most number of bodies are recovered near Rammanahalli, Doddakanya, Varuna and Jayapura. The reasons being many — while in the case of women, a majority of them are washed away by strong current during the process of washing clothes.

 There are also cases of suicide, but registered as unnatural death report (UDR) in general. In case of men, swimming is the main cause, besides bathing and also immersion of idols during Ganesha festival. Very recently, two youths from Kyatamaranahalli met their watery grave when they were washed by a strong current during idol immersion.

While the body of one was found the following day morning, another was found in the evening, several km away from the spot of drowning.

High frequency
The incidence of cases are high in June and July when the water released into the canal is in huge quantity.

The numbers may go up if the number of casualties reported from Nanjangud police station too are taken into account.  The canal touches Mysore, Nanjangud and T Narsipur taluks in the district and also Srirangapatna in Mandya district, irrigating about 80,000 acres of land.

The irony is, whenever anybody slips into canal or jumps into canal with a motive to kill self, the body is eventually traced at south police limits. That’s also the reason for the rural police personnel to bemoan as tracing the identity, especially in cases of decompsed bodies is a herculean task.

Also, the bodies of few persons who have been  murdered are recovered from the waters here, but this does not happen quite frequently.

Statistics

2006 - Four male and three female
 2007 - 13 male and three female
 2008 - 16 male and five female
 2009 - seven male and three female
 2010 - 16 male and seven female
 2011 - eight male and one female (till August 31)