Night-vision goggles, 8 teams, 36 hours: How the search for missing Mumbai doctor unfolded

After 36 hours of relentless searching, Mumbai police finally traced the body to an outlet of the manhole he fell int

Four teams of the Mumbai police, one team of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), one team of fire brigade officials and one team of civic staffers rushed to Elphinstone Bridge as soon as the police received information that a man had fallen into an open manhole.

Renowned Bombay Hospital gastroenterologist Dr Deepak Amrapurkar. (HT File)

After 36 hours of relentless searching, police were able to trace the body of renowned Bombay Hospital gastroenterologist Dr Deepak Amrapurkar.

Sunil Deshmukh, assistant commissioner of police, Dadar division, said a search operation was launched as soon as Amrapurkar’s wife told police that the doctor went missing.

Amrapurkar had asked his driver to take him home on Tuesday evening. However, he decided to alight near the Elphinstone Road station, owing to severer water logging.Though Amrapurkar’s driver reached his house after a while, the doctor himself did not.

“Eyewitnesses told us they saw a man fall into the manhole. They tried to tell him it was open using gestures, but he failed to spot the missing lid as it was dark,” said Deshmukh.

He added that 15 officers and the fire brigade team found an umbrella caught at the mouth of the open manhole. Amrapurkar’s family confirmed that the umbrella was his.

The police alerted the BMC, fire brigade officials and the NDRF team to trace the doctor.

“We sent a team of three officers equipped with night-vision goggles and flood light cameras for 200 m into the nullah. We had also posted a team at the outlet of the manhole towards the sea,” Deshmukh said.

Around 6.30 am on Thursday, Amrapurkar’s swollen body turned up at the outlet and was spotted by the team.

The body was sent to Sion hospital where the family identified him by his Rado watch and clothes.