3-yr-old, reported missing on Jan 26, found dead in tank

Mahadev Kumbhar, senior police inspector, Bhiwandi City police station said the police had formed six teams to look for the missing boy following instructions from deputy commissioner of police Navnath Dhavale, but he remained untraced till Sunday

Mumbai: The body of a three-year-old boy, who was reported missing on January 26, was found in the water tank of a building in Bhiwandi on Sunday, said police. The deceased was identified as Vidyansh Gopal Chavan, who lived at Waza Mohalla near the Sonapur mosque in Bhiwandi with his father, mother and younger sister.

3-yr-old, reported missing on Jan 26, found dead in tank

Vidyansh went missing at around 3.45pm on January 26, when he was with his mother Mamata Chavan, said police officials. She searched for him in the nearby area, but when she could not find him, she and her husband apprehended that he was kidnapped and decided to report the matter to the police, they added.

Mahadev Kumbhar, senior police inspector, Bhiwandi City police station said the police had formed six teams to look for the missing boy following instructions from deputy commissioner of police Navnath Dhavale, but he remained untraced till Sunday. “We went through CCTV footage of the area from which he went missing, while another team went through CCTV footage from Kalyan railway station. In one video from Kalyan, two men and one woman were seen carrying a boy. Mamata Chavan thought it was her son, so we sought help from technical intelligence, and sent two teams to Bangali Chawl in the Ulhasnagar area and traced them. But the boy was not Vidyansh Chavan.”

Police went through CCTV footage of the area where the family resides again and discovered that Vidyansh had not left the building at all. “We called a dog squad and found his body in a water tank located on the ground floor of a five-storied municipal building,” said Kumbhar.

The body was taken to the Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital in Bhiwandi for post-mortem, which revealed drowning as the cause of death. An accidental death report was lodged accordingly, said police.