Seven days after a Pune techie drowned in the Glacier National Park in the United States, his family on Saturday alleged that neither the US nor the Indian government was sharing any concrete information about him with them. Siddhant Patil, 26, a former resident of Vishalnagar in the Pimple Nilakh area of Pimpri-Chinchwad, had been living in the US since 2020. He had gone there to do his MS from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and joined a software company in 2023. Last Saturday, Siddhant Patil along with some of his Indian friends had gone to the National Park for an excursion. “He was apparently standing on a rock but slipped and fell into the river. His friends immediately alerted the rangers who carried out the search operations but to no avail. Subsequently, helicopters and drones were also pressed into service but all in vain,” his uncle Pritesh Chaudhari told The Indian Express. “There is a lot of negative news going around. We have shut ourselves out from it. We are hopeful that Siddhant will be found alive. Miracles do happen, and we are waiting for one such,” added Chaudhari. The family lamented that both the US and the Indian Government’s response has been lackadaisical. “We have been repeatedly contacting the Indian embassy in the US but they are not giving us any concrete information. Neither are we getting any updates. Maharashtra leaders like Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Pune MP Murlidhar Mohol have contacted External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, but there has been no information coming forth as to what initiative the Indian Government has taken in this direction. Their poor response has only aggravated our pain and shock, but we are hopeful something positive will emerge,” Chaudhari said. Chaudhari said Siddhant Patil drowned on Saturday and they learnt about it on Sunday morning. “We got a call from his firm informing us about the incident,” he said. Siddhant Patil had called up his mother during his trip to the Park. “He told his mother he was at the Park for three days with six other Indian friends and they were all enjoying their outing,” Chaudhari said. Two hours before the tragedy struck, he had also texted his mother that he would be returning to San Jose in three days. Siddhant Patil’s father retired last year from the Maharashtra Government’s irrigation department. His mother is a housewife. The family used to live earlier in Aundh but shifted to Pimple Nilakh a few years ago. The only son of his parents, Siddhanth Patil studied at Loyola school and did his engineering at BITS Pilani.
