Little Manvi was finally traced on Friday morning, with her darkened body floating in the still waters of the check dam on Musi river at Marripally in Hayathnagar.
Thus the curtains came down on the 21-hour-long massive search taken up by L.B. Nagar police, which began hours after the 18-month-old girl slipped from her father Megha Shyam Reddy’s arms near Nagole. It also brought the agonising wait of her family to an end, even as the trauma of losing their child will continue to haunt them.
Dr. Reddy, a Hyderabadi working as an anaesthetist in United Kingdom who flew into the city for a vacation with family, was a shattered man.
“Manvi’s parents are in no position to speak, leave alone go to the mishap spot,” a relative said. The search for the baby began at 6 a.m., with a Tourism Department boat being pressed into service.
Two expert swimmers, one of the girl’s relatives and L.B. Nagar Sub-Inspector P. Naresh, set out in the boat and went downstream for over 6 km. Meanwhile, a 30-member team of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), carrying life jackets, rubber tubes and three rubber boats, also drove to the site.
“We were prepared to scour through the entire river stretch,” L.B. Nagar Inspector P. Srinivas Reddy said.
Even as the NDRF team reached Musi, the Inspector received a message that the body had surfaced.
The rescue team returned to Nagole where poignant scenes were witnessed after Manvi’s family lifted her body from the boat.
Police later handed over the body to her family after an autopsy at the Osmania General Hospital.
Initially, a case of missing toddler was registered. On Friday, Section 174 (suspicious death) of the Criminal Procedure Code was added.
