Noida: Six days after a four-year-old boy fell into the Ganga canal in Dankaur, his body was recovered nearly 120km downstream in Mathura on Thursday. The victim, Adnan, a resident of Daula Rajpura village off Eastern Peripheral Expressway, had slipped into the canal on Feb 27 while playing at the edge of the canal bank near his home. Teams from the National Disaster Response Force and State Disaster Response Force searched for the boy until March 3 before calling off the operation.Police officers in Mathura found the child’s body caught up in weeds near Vrindavan after a passerby alerted them. The body had bloated and was unrecognizable. The family members identified him from his clothes.Dankaur police station-in-charge Munendra Singh said, “We had notified the police in all nearby districts regarding the missing boy. On Thursday, we received a call from the Mathura police station that the child’s body had floated up in the canal. We sent personnel along with the child’s relatives to identify the body.”His father, Israr, told TOI that he had travelled around 60-70 km along the banks of the canal to search for his child but could not find him.The family brought the child’s body back to the village. His last rites were performed in the presence of relatives and villagers, many of whom joined the family during the days of search and uncertainty. “Adnan was the youngest and the dearest in the family. Carrying a son’s coffin is the biggest misfortune for any father,” a grieving father said. Villagers said the canal flows close to several homes in the area and children often play near the embankment, raising concerns about safety.
