UP girl swept into open drain found dead after 4 days of search, 4 officials suspended

On Saturday, sources said divers brought in from Baghpat finally located the girl’s body, lodged amid garbage in a drain in Chawli village. They alerted the wider rescue team, which rushed to the spot and carefully recovered the body.

“After the postmortem, the body would be handed over to the family,” said Abhishek Pratap Ajeya, Additional Superintendent of Police, Bulandshahr.

The victim, identified as Charu Kashyap, was a student of Class IV and a resident of the Satha locality in Bulandshahr. The dead girl’s family could not be contacted for comment.

Taking serious note of the incident, the Uttar Pradesh government has suspended four officials – two sanitation inspectors and two junior engineers – on charges of negligence.

Meanwhile, the Bulandshahr police are pressing ahead with their investigation into the case, filed on the complaint of the girl’s father.

Sukhbir Singh, Station House Officer of Kotwali police station, said that no arrests have been made so far, though the investigation remains ongoing.

Culpable homicide

Acting on the complaint filed by the victim’s father, the police have registered an FIR on charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder against the manager, principal and staff of the school where the girl studied. In his complaint, the father alleged that on the day of the incident, the area had witnessed exceptionally heavy rainfall, leaving the roads severely waterlogged. He said the nearby drain had overflowed, causing nearly two to three feet of water to accumulate on the road – water that, he alleged, was moving with a current strong enough to sweep his young daughter away.

The complainant alleged that despite being fully aware of the hazardous conditions and the risk posed to young children on their way home, the school management and principal nonetheless dismissed the students and allowed them to leave the premises. He contended that in such circumstances, the children ought to have been kept inside the school until conditions had improved.

The complainant alleged that while returning home from school through the flooded streets, his daughter encountered a strong current near a drain close to the school. Caught in the rain, she had reportedly taken shelter on a concrete slab covering the drain in an attempt to stay dry. The slab, however, allegedly turned slippery, causing her to lose her footing and be swept away by the fast-flowing water.

He claimed that bystanders at the scene made every possible effort to rescue her, but their attempts proved unsuccessful.