A girl child, who went missing from outside her house on the banks of the Buckingham Canal in Neelankarai on Saturday evening, was found floating dead nearby on Monday morning. Police said the girl had drowned.
Neelankarai police sources said the body of two-and-half-year-old R. Madhu was found a little distance away from her house on the canal bank at Arignar Anna Nagar 2 Street by some residents. Madhu, who is the second child of Rajesh (27), a mason, and Sabitha (24), a housekeeper at an IT firm, was playing with her sister Laddu Kumari (4) on Saturday after her parents left for work. The family hails from Bihar and settled in the city three months ago.
The couple returned in the evening to find Kumari crying but couldn’t locate Madhu. Rajesh lodged a person missing compliant with the Neelankarai police who registered a case and launched a hunt for the child. Meanwhile, Laddu Kumari told the police that an unidentified man had taken away her sister after offering a packet of biscuits.
Around 10 a.m. on Monday, residents on the banks of the canal a kilometre away from Rajesh’s house spotted the body of a child. The police was alerted and a team from Neelankarai reached the spot and the child was later identified as Madhu by her parents. “We carried out a thorough probe and it is a clear case of drowning. The child was playing near the canal and must have accidently fallen into the water resulting in her death.,” said D. Kannan, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Adyar.
