Hyd Techie swept away in trench, remains untraced

Hyderabad, Sep 27:  A techie who fell into a roadside trench in Manikonda area here amid heavy rains on Saturday night remained untraced even on Monday.

For the second day, nearly 100 rescue workers continued search for Gopishetty Rajinikanth (42), who is feared drowned after falling into a storm water-filled trench dug for laying drainage pipelines.

The techie, a resident of Neknampur, fell and got swept away when he came out of his house to smoke a cigarette. He was walking on the road through ankle-deep water when he accidentally fell in the under-construction trench and got washed away.

A video of the man falling into the trench went viral on social media. A man, who was video recording the inundated road accidentally captured the shocking visual.

Even 48 hours after the incident, the Disaster Response Force of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) and special police parties of Cyberabad Commissionerate failed to locate the man. Search operations in nearby Neknampur lake also proved futile.

Authorities were also using a drone as part of the search operation. National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel have also been roped in. As many as 100 rescue workers were participating in the search. The man is suspected to have been swept away to Ibrahim Cheruvu or Musi lake.

Rajinikanth was an employee of a company in Shadnagar town near Hyderabad.

Municipal officials claimed that the area was barricaded and the work to lay the pipeline was delayed due to Ganesh Chaturthi. However, the video shows that there were no barricades and the man easily accessed the area, resulting in his fatal fall.