Day after boy goes missing, body washes up on riverbank

Thiruvananthapuram: A day after 16-year-old Abhijith M R went missing from his home, his body was found on the banks of Karamana River on Monday. A Class XI student of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Kodunganoor, he was the son of Ratheesh Kumar and Manju G, residents of Abhiramam, Karamana–Nedumcadu Road. Ratheesh Kumar is an employee of postal department and Manju is a housewife.
There were no clothes on the body when it was found at the river bank. There were injury marks on his lips and nose. The police said that they have not found anything suspicious so far. They had registered a missing case on Sunday and changed the section to 174 CrPC for unnatural death on Monday. Police sources said that the cause of death and other details can be ascertained on after post-mortem and detailed probe.
Abhijith was preparing for his annual examination on Sunday. He had lunch together with his parents and grandmother Gomathi around 1.30pm. After lunch, his parents left for a private lab at Medical College Junction for a health check-up for Ratheesh Kumar.
A kid in the neighbourhood saw Abhijith at the door step around 3pm on Sunday. His parents also spoke to him over mobile phone, according to relatives. By 4pm, the parents returned and found out that Abhijith was not at home. He had reportedly told his grandmother that he was going out and would be back soon.
When the parents found out that Abhijith was missing, they got worried and rang up Padmakumar, the younger brother of Ratheesh Kumar who also lives at Karamana. Soon, the neighbours started searching all around for Abhijith. The search continued on Monday and went on till noon when they were told that the body of a boy had washed ashore near Sasthri Nagar-South.
The relatives went to the spot and identified the body. Karamana police completed the inquest procedures and the body was taken to the Medical College Hospital for post-mortem.
The unexpected demise of the boy threw the housing colony at Karamana into despair. Both Ratheesh Kumar and his wife Manju sat devastated in the drawing room “I had not ever scolded him, why did he leave us?,” Manju spoke between her sobs even as people around tried to comfort her. Every time a relative came, she grasped their arms and said, “You promised me you would bring him alive, right”.
The neighbours and relatives remembered Abhijith as a boy who usually kept to himself. “Being a single child, he was very much attached to his parents. He rarely went out except with his parents,” said Balu, a neighbour. During office get together, Abhijith remained mostly with his parents, recollected colleagues of Ratheesh Kumar.
The relatives found it hard to believe that Abhijith was no more. He is not known to have shared any issues at tuition centre or school nor with his parents or close relatives. They said that on Sunday he had told his father to drop him off at school for the examination.
“He was a quiet child, he didn’t have many friends. He never seemed to have been too much concerned about his studies because he always did well in his exams,” said Padmakumar, brother of Ratheeshkumar.