Click to play videoBangalore: Missing nuclear scientist Mahalingam's family has identified his body after it was recovered from the Kali river near Kaiga. He had been missing for the last six days.
The 48-year-old nuclear scientist went missing near the Kaiga atomic plant where he worked while on a walk. After searches near the power plant, in the jungles nearby and other places drew a blank, naval divers were called in to search for him.
It was feared that he may have slipped and fallen into the Kali while on his jog. Naval divers reported success when they came up with a body that was in a badly decomposed state.
Police refused to make any categorical comments on the body found as they will be able to establish the identity only after the forensic report arrives.
Superintendent of Police Raman Gupta said, “We have found an unidentified body from the Kali.”
However, Mahalingam's family members and authorities of the Kaiga nuclear power plant have reportedly identified the body as that of the missing scientist.
Reportedly, the ring on fingers of the body and the clothes it was found in have been key in the identification process.
However, the police is not confirming this officially as they await postmortem reports. Intelligence sources say the badly mutilated body could be five days old and is barely recognisable.
- Mahalingam had set out for a jog on the morning of June 8, 2009 near the Kaiga Atomic Power plant.
- When Mahalingam didn't return home, his family grew anxious and filed a missing persons complaint later.
- The local police the CISF and forest officials scoured the dense jungles of Karwar but found nothing.
- Sniffer dogs were deployed to search for the scientist, suspecting an attack from animals in the adjoining jungle.
- Expert divers were called in next to see if he may have slipped and fallen into the Kali river.
Mahalingam had been working as a senior officer at the Kaiga Atomic Power plant for over 10 years. His mysterious disappearance raised suspicions that he may have been kidnapped for classified information.
But Atomic power station authorities at Kaiga assured that no classified documents had been leaked in the process.
NPCL Director, Nageshwar Rao said, “We wanted to clarify that this particular area where we are working is general purpose (not sensitive documents related) and we have operational experience, like on turbines, generators etc.” Rao told this to
A DNA test will soon determine whether the body is in fact that of the missing scientist.
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