Mumbai: Where is little Divyansh Singh, ask his parents and millions of Mumbaikars. On Friday night, the fire brigade called off their search operations and by late afternoon the next day, the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) too had failed to locate the three-year-old toddler who fell into an open gutter on Wednesday. The search was finally called off around 10pm, according to a BMC spokesperson of BMC.
Immediately after the search operations were stopped, 50-60 people from the neighbourhood had set off on a protest march, from the spot where the incident had occurred, to the BMC F- South ward office. The boy's family and neighbours said, though the BMC team had called off its search on Saturday morning, some workers were seen digging in the opposite direction, just to keep up appearances, the former alleged. This token effort too was called off after a while.
This irked the family of Divyansh and accompanied by 50-60 people from the locality, took to the streets, demanding justice. Though their meeting with BMC officials after their protest march failed, the family claims BMC officials admitted their mistake.
After three days, 50 members of these three search teams claimed to have intensified their search by opening all the manholes along the stretch. On July 10, Divyansh fell into an open gutter at Ambedkar Chowk in Malad (E), around 10pm and has remained untraceable ever since.
After CCTV footage showed the toddler fall inside the gutter, his father, Suraj Singh demanded action against the BMC officials who failed to ensure the gutter was covered. Suraj also demanded the resignation of Mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar for negligence and for his son's death.
Later, the BMC tweeted that an unknown person had been seen opening the drain covered with a cement lid on July 1 and pushing the lid towards the electric box. They claimed this act had been captured on the CCTV camera in the neighbourhood.
The family has decided to go on a hunger strike, starting from Sunday, to protest the failures of all the agencies in helping find their child. They have demanded that the police file a First Information Report (FIR) against BMC officials and the mayor's resignation for this failure.
