Delhi engineer, 24, who went missing in Lonavla forest found dead in gorge

Pune Rural SP Abhinav Deshmukh said it was possible that Farhan Shah, an engineer with a robotics firm, may have slipped and fallen in the gorge.

PUNE: A 24-year-old Delhi engineer who went missing last week during a trek at Lonavla near Pune has been found dead in a 40-feet deep gorge near Duke’s Nose on Tuesday, police said.

A young engineer, Farhan Shah, 24, went for a quick trek to Lonavla but lost his way in the forest on Friday. He was found dead on Monday

Police said a rescue team from INS Shivaji, a naval station based in Lonavla, spotted Farhan Shah lying dead in the gorge. Efforts are being made by a joint team, which also comprises police and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel, to retrieve his body, said Pune Rural superintendent of police (SP) Abhinav Deshmukh.

Deshmukh said it was possible that Shah, an engineer with a robotics firm, may have slipped and fallen in the gorge.

Farhan Shah, who was on an official visit to Kolhapur, took some time off after work to go on a trek on Friday afternoon.

At some point, he realised that he was lost in the forest and phoned his brother to get him help. His brother informed the Lonavla police about the distress call. The search for Farhan Shah began soon after.

The deceased was into making robots and his brother Irfan Shah from Delhi had informed the Lonavla police about his brother’s distress call seeking help as he had lost his way in the jungles.

“Since he was alone, it became difficult for him to reconnect with the outside world,” district SP Deshmukh said. Otherwise, he added, the area where he went missing is not known to be one where trekkers go missing or meet with accidents.

To be sure, local groups such as Shivdurg Pratisthan, which was also helping to find Farhan Shah, said they have helped locate over 600 tourists who lost their way in the forest since 2005. Most of them were located in a matter of hours.