Missing Bihar engineer found dead in Ujjain drain

Times News NetworkUjjain: A 22-year-old engineer from Bihar, who had been missing for the past five days, was found dead in a dry drain in Ujjain’s Narwar police station area on Saturday morning.The deceased was identified as Sanjeev Pandit, a resident of Nalanda district in Bihar. His family had lodged a missing person complaint with police on June 3 after losing contact with him.According to Narwar police station in-charge Ballu Mandloi, locals alerted police after a foul smell emanated from a dry drain along a deserted stretch near Kesuni village. A police team reached the spot and recovered a highly decomposed body from the drain.The victim’s scooter and mobile phone were also found near the body. Family members, who had travelled to Ujjain from Bihar during the search, identified the deceased.Police said preliminary investigation suggested Sanjeev may have died in a road accident. “It appears that while travelling on a scooter, he may have been hit by an unidentified vehicle and fallen into the drain. The route witnesses frequent movement of heavy vehicles due to nearby quarries,” Mandloi said.Officials said that the body had remained in the open for several days and was damaged due to extreme heat and scavenging animals.According to family members, Sanjeev had come to the area for engineering-related work at a gravel quarry in Piploda Dwarkadhish. They said his phone continued to ring for the first couple of days after he went missing, but no one answered. The phone was later switched off.Police have sent the body for postmortem examination.