The search for the three remaining missing advertisement professionals, including one female employee, and the car finally ended on Thursday afternoon. National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) team and local fishermen located the car with the bodies of Pranav Lele, Sahil Kureshi and Shrutika Chandwani trapped inside the vehicle under the Nira river bridge .
The car containing the three bloated bodies was lifted from the river with the help of a crane around 1 pm and sent to Bhor hospital for post-mortem.
On Wednesday, the rural police had managed to fish out Chintan Buch’s body from the rivers’ backwaters. His body was spotted floating near the river bed, approximately one km from the bridge, where the car was located.
Cops conclude that the car plunged into the river through the gap between two bridges as the bonnet of the car was found to be mangled.
‘After recovering the body of Chintan, we concentrated on the gap between the two bridges. Minute inspection of the gap and the pillars of the bridge revealed some scratches on the walls and there were some brake mark signs at the dividers,” said superintendent of police (Pune rural) Manojkumar Lohiya.
He said that they then asked the NDRF to search the area near the gap.
However, on first day, they did not yield any success as the car might have shifted to some distance due to the air pressure in the wheels.
“It seems that due to speed, the car driver might have lost control of the vehicle and the car scaled the middle divider and plunged into the river and collided with some big object,” he said.
The police officer said that had not Chintan thrown out of the car after the car plunged into the river and his body had not floated towards the river bed, it would not have been possible for the police to conclude that the car might have fallen off the bridge. The search operation had resumed around 10 am on Thursday.
Madhukar Kamble, a local fisherman who has been helping the police and the NDRF team along with other fishermen, had put his fishing hook into the river and sensed that the hook has been struck somewhere and alerted the NDRF team..
NDRF assistant commandant SA Ahmed said that the divers went down the water under the bridge and confirmed the location of the car.
“We lifted the car with the help of a crane and found the bodies inside with the doors locked. However, the windscreen was completely broken,” he said.
He suspects that Chintan might have been thrown outside from the broken windscreen. Foul smell was emanating from the bloated bodies and eucalyptus oil was sprinkled to lessen the stink.
The bodies were taken to Bhor-based government hospital where the autopsy was conducted before handing it over to relatives late evening.
DySP Milind Mohite of Bhor division said that they have registered a case of accident.
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