11 Days After Visually Impaired Girl Fell Into Open Sewer in Ahmedabad, Flesh Fragments Found in Sabarmati River Sent to FSL

AHMEDABAD — Eleven days after a 10-year-old visually impaired girl slipped into an open drainage line in the Piplaj area, the search operation took a grim turn on Tuesday afternoon as fire brigade personnel recovered flesh fragments from a section of the river downstream. The biological samples were immediately handed over to the police and dispatched to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) to verify whether they belong to the missing child or an animal.

The tragic incident unfolded on October 10 when the young girl was standing with her mother in Piplaj. As her mother turned away to pay the autorickshaw fare, the child accidentally stepped into an uncovered drainage manhole. Despite continuous multi-agency search efforts spanning 11 days, authorities have failed to trace her inside the vast underground network.

Hazardous Conditions Cripple Search Operations

Ahmedabad Fire and Emergency Services (AFES) teams face severe operational hurdles inside the drainage pipeline, which carries heavy volumes of industrial chemical effluent and thick sludge.

Key challenges reported by search crews:

• Toxic Effluent Flow: Continuous streams of chemical-laden wastewater inside the main trunk line reduce visibility to zero and threaten responder safety.
• Heavy Sludge Accumulation: Thick silt and industrial waste deposits along the pipeline bed impede underwater camera equipment and manual probing.
• Unconfirmed River Finds: Flesh fragments spotted in the river area on Tuesday afternoon were secured by police presence and sent for forensic testing.

Open Manhole Covered with Dirt as Search Slows Down

Even as forensic analysis remains pending on the recovered flesh fragments, civic workers have dumped soil over the open drainage line where the child fell and sealed the cover. The move has triggered sharp concern that search operations inside the trunk line are effectively being wound down before establishing the girl's fate.

The failure to locate the visually impaired child after 11 days of continuous operations highlights severe gaps in urban safety, drawing sharp contrast with the city's civic budget exceeding Rs 18,000 crore and its smart city aspirations.