Three persons of a family, who were missing since the last 20 days, were found dead under mysterious circumstances in their car in Kakatiya Canal waters at Alugunur on the outskirts and their decomposed bodies were fished out on Monday.
The irrigation officials had reduced the release of waters from LMD reservoir into the Kakatiya Canal to retrieve the body of a woman who drowned in the canal waters on Sunday night. The couple Pradeep and his wife Keerthana were proceeding on their motorbike to Ganneruvaram from Karimnagar when their bike plunged into the canal. The police rescued Pradeep while Keerthana was washed away.
In order to retrieve the body of Keerthana, the police asked the irrigation authorities to reduce the flow into the canal. However, the police were shocked to find a car submerged in the water and with three decomposed dead bodies. A huge crane was pressed into service to lift the vehicle to the bund and the bodies were retrieved.
With the help of the vehicle number, the police could identify the victims as Nareddy Satyanarayana Reddy (55), a businessman, his wife Radha (50) a government teacher and daughter Vinayasri, who is studying dental science course in Nizamabad. Incidentally, the family is related to Peddapalli legislator Dasari Manohar Reddy. Radha was his own sister.
Police sources said that the victims residing in Bank Colony here were on a tour on January 27 evening. The police suspect that their car might have plunged accidentally into the canal on their way to Hyderabad and not noticed by anyone. As the water flow was heavy, the car was completely submerged.
Commissioner of Police V.B. Kamalasan Reddy said that they have no information about how the accident took place and added that they had instructed trainee IPS Nikitha Pant to investigate into the case.
Expressing shock and grief over the accidental death of his sister Radha and her family members, Peddapalli legislator D Manohar Reddy, however, ruled out any foul play in the death of his relatives. He said that the narrow road at the canal and non-availability of barricading might have caused the accident.
“Usually, the family goes on a pilgrimage occasionally and we expected that they were on tour. We all expected that they would return soon. We never expected that they would be found dead in the canal,” he added.
