17 days on, five missing found dead in canal

Surat: Seventeen days after five members of a family from Vyara taluka of Tapi district went missing with their car, their decomposed bodies were found from a local canal near Bardoli in Surat district late on Saturday, said the police.
Gamit, along with four others had gone to offer prayers in a temple at Kadod, 20km off Surat district. On the way back, they went missing. The bodies of Jeevan Gamit (65), his wife Sharmila (62), son Dharmesh (41), daughter-in-law Sunita (36) and granddaughter Urvi (6) were fished out from the canal near Madhi village. Police sub-inspector BK Patel said, “The bodies were in highly decomposed state and were unrecognizable. The Maruti Eeco car they were driving was seen in the canal after water ebbed as the flow of supply was reduced.”

Bardoli police said that the family lived in Kapura village of Vyara taluka of Tapi district and a missing complaint was filed on February 28 by the family members with local police. Gamit was a Okra (Bhindi) trader in Surat’s APMC market. However, for the last few months, he was in debt and loan sharks were troubling him immesely to recover their money. The police said that they were also making threatening calls to him.

“Their car apparently fell into the canal near Madhi village. Local residents spotted the car on Sunday and informed us. We brought out the vehicle along with the bodies of the five members found inside in a highly decomposed state,” the police said. But locals from Vyara have raised doubts on the drowning theory. They claim that the canal was never so full that it would require 17 days for a car of that size to come to people’s notice.

However, officially police said that it looks like the driver lost control of the car and it plunged into the canal. Police sent the bodies for postmortem and investigation is on.