Nashik techie, who developed app to aid Chennai flood victims, commits suicide

An engineer from Nashik, who became famous for his mobile phone application that saved thousands of lives during the Chennai floods, was found dead in his residence on Wednesday night.

According to a report by The Times of India, Kaushal Bag was found hanging at his residence in Ashokanagar, Nashik on Wednesday night. The cops also found a suicide message recorded in video format on his mobile phone.

The Mumbai Naka Police have registered a case of accidental death, but said the reason of his death was still unknown.

It took almost two hours for the family members to realise that something had gone wrong. His brother, Hrushikesh, broke open the door of his room and took him to a nearby private hospital, where doctors declared him dead after preliminary examinations.

"While nothing like a suicide note was found near his body, some video clips were found recorded on his smartphone. In the clip, Bag was seen saying that that the decision of committing suicide was his own and no one from his family and friends should be harassed. He hasn't blamed any person or circumstances for his suicide," commissioner of police Ravinder Kumar Singal said.

A second year information technology (IT) student, Bag became popular after his app 'Helping Hand' saved thousands of lives during the devastating flood in Chennai in 2015. 

In 2015 during the Kumbh Mela, Kaushal had developed Helping Hands as an automated SMS application. The small size application was circulated through a free download link but was not available on the play store and Kaushal's innovation was not much noticed at the time.

During the December 2015 Chennai floods, however, the application caught attention as it helped rescue as many as 18,890 stranded people.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg praised Bag's innovations on Facebook, and even offered him a job as a Product Manager in Facebook.