From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network
BANGALORE, JUL 16: Suspecting foul play in the sensational episode of six-year-old Abhishek getting washed away in Bangalore’s drains on May 31, Chief Minister B. S. Yeddyurappa on Thursday said he would order a comprehensive inquiry into the episode to "bring out truth."
Abhishek’s body is yet to be traced after falling into an uncovered drain that was flooded with rainwater in Lingarajapuram. He slipped into the drain while walking with his mother.
The incident came up before the Legislative Council on Thursday when Janata Dal (S) member Abdul Azim raised the issue during the Question Hour. Replying to the member, Mr. Yeddyurappa said the entire episode had become suspicious as even the Army ( a team of
Madras Engineering Group) too could not trace the body.
He maintained that if the boy had drowned, there was no possibility of the body getting carried away beyond a certain point. "The body should have been there in one of the areas which have been searched by the Bruhat Banagalore Mahangara Palike or the MEG." He said the suspicion had increased after the MEG, which searched the Hennur lake that forms the last connecting point of the drain, too failed to recover the body.
The Chief minister made it clear that he was not suspecting the boy’s parents. "We want to know if some fishy thing has happened without the parent’s knowledge," he said and remarked that: "The tears of the boy’s parents who could not even see their son’s body have forced me to find out the truth through such an inquiry," he said, but desisted from divulging details on the nature of probe to be ordered.
Strongly defending former BBMP Commissioner Dr. Subramanya who was transferred out of the civic agency after failing to recover the boy’s body, the chief minister said: "why should honest officials get the blame? Let the inquiry throw more light in this regard."
He also noted that the government had decided to fence the road-side storm water drains. Of the 115-km stretch of road-side drains, 45 kms had already been fenced. He expressed confidence that rain-related civic problems would not recur by the commencement of next monsoon as implementation of all such precautionary measures would be complete by then. Round-the-clock control rooms too had been set up in all the eight zones of the BBMP to attend to rain-related complaints.
Referring to the stray dog menace, he said 2.63 lakh dogs had been subjected to animal birth control surgery from November 2000 to June 2009. In the same period, 4.39 lakh stray dogs had been subjected to anti rabies vaccination while 50,423 stray dogs had been put to permanent sleep.
JD (S) leader M. C. Nanaiah stressed the need for clearing doubts among people about the Abhikshekh incident through such an inquiry. He demanded that the boy’s parents should be sent to jail if it was found that the boy was alive and that he had not slipped into drain.