‘Someone kidnapped and drugged her’: Missing Kerala girl found dead near Chikkamagaluru waterfall in Karnataka; kin make big claim

CHIKKAMAGALURU: The teenage girl from Kerala, who was reported missing from the Chandradrona Hills here since Tuesday, was found dead near a waterfall at Manikyadhara Hills Friday.

Rescuers rushed to the spot after her body was traced by a drone fitted with a thermal camera. The body was found lying nearly 1,000 feet deep down in a gorge from the Manikyadhara viewpoint.

Police said she could have slipped and fallen into the waterfall. But her parents and relatives claimed she might have been kidnapped and drugged by unknown persons.

Rohini, the mother, collapsed upon seeing the image of her daughter's lifeless body on a phone screen. Suspecting foul play, Rohini later said: "I want my daughter back and I don't believe she slipped from the hill. Someone had kidnapped and drugged her before she went missing."

SP Jitendra Kumar Dayama said that Srinandhana's clothes were intact, adding that the cause of death will be known only after the post mortem. He cautioned against drawing any premature conclusions.

A forensic team had reached the spot and an investigation was under way.

The girl, a class 10 student, went missing during a family trip to the hilly terrain of Chikkamagaluru. She was part of a 40-member trekking team. On Tuesday, around 5.20 pm, while the rest of her family members climbed down Chandradrona, Srinandhana couldn’t be traced.

Family members told the cops they noticed Srinandhana was missing only upon reaching the parking lot at Manikyadhara Hills, about 150 metres from the spot where her body was eventually found.

The rescue team comprising personnel from the police, forest, fire and emergency services, and the State Disaster Response Force had a tough time retrieving the body from the 1,000-foot gorge.

Srinandhana’s relatives said, soon after they realised Srinandhana was missing, they informed her parents. “Her parents were standing right above the spot from where the body was eventually traced. Even the rescue teams had scoured that area earlier, but did not notice anything,” they said.

Thermal drone camera comes in handy
For the first time, a thermal drone camera dedicated to locating wild elephant s was used to trace the missing Kerala tee n.Chikkamagaluru forest department has two such drone cameras at its disposal.

Backed by AI-powered night-vision imaging, thermal cameras help scan movements of humans and animals by detecting heat signatures in complete darkness, thick fog or dense forests. The drones bearing these cameras can cover an area of 4-5 sqkm, 30-40 minutes of power backup, an official said.
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