Search ends, actor's highly bloated body comes afloat

The three-day search for the bodies of two Kannada actors, who drowned in the Thippagondanahalli reservoir on Monday, concluded on Thursday.

The body of Anil Kumar was found floating around 5.50 am. The search teams also found the body of a man who had accidently drowned in the lake on Tuesday. The body of another actor, Raghav Uday, had been found floating at 3.32 pm on Wednesday.

Kumar’s body came afloat around 20 metres from where the teams were looking for it, said Subeesh K S, assistant commandant (Ministry of Home Affairs), Regional Response Centre, 10th Battalion, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF). The NDRF team kept searching for Anil’s body till late on Wednesday night, using torches, headlights, deep dive torches and kerosene lamps. The search resumed around 5 am.

The body was four times more bloated than Uday’s, possibly because he was bulkier and didn’t know how to swim. It also had wounds from angle hooks used by the search teams during the operation. There were fish nibble marks around Kumar’s stomach, wrist and face, said an official in the Fire and Emergency Services Department.

“Anil’s body was found in backstroke swimming position, just like Uday’s. Since high-speed winds were moving on  the right side, the body had floated in that direction, around 20 metres from where Uday’s body was found. Once the body was located, it was wrapped and brought to shore within ten minutes,” another member of the NDRF’s rescue team said. “Since there was no crowd or disturbance, everything happened very quickly.”

The post-mortem was conducted around 8.30 am in the makeshift tent on the bank of the reservoir where Uday’s autopsy was also carried out. The operation could be performed only after three hours because doctors waited for Kumar’s family, the superintendent of police and tahsildar of Ramanagaram to complete the formalities. Thereafter, the body was handed over to Kumar’s brother, Arun, and it was taken by ambulance to the actor’s residence in Kadirenahalli.

The other body
Soon after Kumar’s body was found, the NDRF team intensified the search for Yellaiah, 27, a daily wage worker who had drowned in the reservoir  on Tuesday. His body was found floating around 3.30 pm amid weeds in the fag end of the reservoir near the shore 100 metres from where Uday and Kumar’s bodies were found.

Yellaiah, said the Tavarekere police, was among people who had come to the reservoir to catch a glimpse of visiting cine stars and witness the search for the bodies of Kumar and Uday. Some people said he slipped into the water while saving himself from a honeybee attack. Others suggested he slipped into the water when police tried to prevent onlookers from getting too close to the water. Police said they were investigating the death.

A police officer said they received a missing complaint on Wednesday. They searched for him in TG Halli and near Ramanagaram, but there was no sight of him. They suspected he had drowned and requested the NDRF to search for him.