Noida: A four-year-old boy is feared drowned after he slipped into the Ganga canal while playing outside his home with his siblings in Dolarajpura village of Dankaur on Friday evening.Police said the child remained untraced for more than 24 hours despite a frantic night-long search by villagers and local divers, who were joined by SDRF and NDRF teams on Saturday morning. The irrigation department also reduced the flow of water in the canal to aid rescue operations, but police said the depth and speed of the current continued to hamper the search.The boy, Adnan, son of a shuttering contractor, was playing with his elder brother and sister near the canal, about 200 metres from their house, when he slipped around 6pm and was swept away by the strong current. Villagers said the child lost his footing at the edge of the canal, which runs along an unpaved road and has no boundary wall, railing or fencing despite being lined with houses—an absence residents said has long made the stretch dangerous, particularly for children who often play along its edge.Adnan’s father, Israr, said the children often played near the canal. His eldest son, Junaid (16), had jumped into the water to retrieve a floating coconut for Adnan. “Junaid knows how to swim and was out of the water within minutes. But as he handed the coconut to Adnan, the child lost his balance and slipped into the canal. Junaid tried to grab him, but the current was too strong, and Adnan was swept away,” Israr told TOI.Villagers rushed to the spot as Junaid raised an alarm. Some jumped into the canal to locate the child, but the fading light and swift current—the canal is around five-and-a-half feet deep in the area—made it an ardous task.”Within seconds, Adnan was out of sight,” Israr said. “By 7pm, it had already gone dark.”The family informed the local police post around 7.30pm. “A search operation was launched at night along with local divers. The SDRF and NDRF teams arrived early on Saturday with boats, divers and equipment,” Dankaur police station in-charge Munendra Singh said. Officials said around 35 personnel, including deep divers, were deployed as the search resumed along the canal. Senior district officials, including the SMD, also arrived at the spot and coordinated with disaster response agencies.SDM Sadar Ashutosh Gupta wrote to Neeraj Tyagi, the executive engineer (irrigation department) of the Upper Mount branch division in Khurja, Bulandshahr, requesting that water flow be reduced. Subsequently, the water level dropped by about a foot on Saturday afternoon. Despite the efforts, the boy could not be traced till evening. Officials said the search was called off at 6pm but would commence on Sunday. For the family, the wait has been agonising. Israr said Adnan had undergone surgery for a kidney stone just a month ago. “His mother hasn’t eaten since he went missing,” he said. “The police and administration are doing everything they can. I still have hope that my son will be found alive.”The tragedy highlighted the dangers posed by unfenced canals and trenches in densely populated areas. On Jan 16 night, software engineer Yuvraj Mehta was driving his Grand Vitara home to Tata Eureka Park in Sector 150 when his SUV plunged into a deep pit at an under-construction commercial site. Amid dense fog and poor lighting, Mehta was negotiating a sharp turn near ATS Le Grandiose when the vehicle smashed through a damaged boundary wall and fell into a trench dug for a double basement. The site also had no barricades, reflectors or warning signs. Across Noida, there are several such deep trenches dug on housing and commercial plots in the city, lying in that state for years, inviting more accidents. A survey by TOI in the days following Mehta’s death found several such excavations along or near busy roads in Sectors 32, 85, 150 and 154. Many featured steep drops, dense vegetation or exposed columns with iron rods jutting out, but lacked even basic safety measures such as barricades, warning signs or reflective markers.On Saturday, Tyagi told TOI that the irrigation department has no provision to fence the canal. “As per norms, no construction or habitation is permitted within 18 metres of the Ganga Nahar canal,” he said.
