The 15-year-old girl from Palakkad, Kerala, who went missing in Chikkamagalur district in Karnataka was found dead on Friday near the Manikyadhara waterfalls, police said after a large-scale search operation that lasted several days.
Sreenanda had disappeared on Tuesday evening at the Baba Budangiri, where she was on a trip with about 40 relatives visiting the Chandradroa hill ranges. Her absence was noticed after the group reached the summit. The search that followed was led by the Chikkamagaluru Rural police.
Chikkamagaluru Superintendent of Police Jitendra Kumar Dayama, told The Hindu that the body of the class 10 student was found.
“The body has been spotted and identified. It may be an accident, but we are also probing other angles,” he said. “The post-mortem and other procedures will follow,” he said.
The body was found close to where she was reported missing. The area was heavily barricaded with only one access route.
Police are now examining whether she fell from a viewpoint at the site. The SP also said that the clothes she was wearing were intact. The body has been sent for a post-mortem.
Family members say the location of where the body was found had previously been searched without success, Hindustan Times reported. They also say there is foul play involved in her death. Sreenanda's uncle Sasikumar told reportes in Palakkad that her body showed scarce signs of decomposition acording to relatives at the search spot. The family have petitioned for a detailed investigation.
“When I called her parents to say she hadn’t reached the entrance, both of them were standing in the area where her body has now been found,” one relative said, adding that the location was about 150 metres from where she was last seen.
The girl was first noticed to be missing around 5:30 pm on Tuesday at the falls with her family. She was present for a group photograph at around 5:20 pm. However, by 3:35 p.m., she had disappeared from images captured by the group. The family had searched for her until about 8 pm before alerting the authorities.
The police and forest department personnel launched a search operation in the area. Thermal drones were deployed to locate the girl. The search team was later also joined by the Disaster Management team. About 60 teams along with another 10 teams were sent to the state. More than a 100 people were involved in the search.
Investigators had also identified about 240 vehicles that were present at the site on the day she went missing, as initial investigations suspected a possible abduction.
