Missing worker found dead at Maharashtra's Ghorwadeshwar

PUNE: The body of a 25-year-old missing construction worker, Laxman Pujari, was traced and recovered on Tuesday night from a 150ft deep gorge at the Ghorwadeshwar hillock on the old Pune-Mumbai highway.
Pujari, a resident of the MHADA colony in Talegaon Dabhade, had gone missing on Sunday. Assistant inspector D R Sali of the Talegaon Dabhade police said the investigations revealed that Pujari and his two friends had gone atop the hillock and consumed liquor there on Sunday evening. "As Pujari drank a lot and was not in his senses, his friends left him on the hillock and returned home," Sali said.
The officer said Pujari then called his family members staying in Bijapur, Karnataka, and told them he was feeling unwell. "While talking with them, Pujari is suspected to have slipped from the edge of the hillock as his family members heard a loud thud while speaking on the phone. There was no response from the victim after that," he said.
Sali said Pujari's relatives continued to call him instead of informing the local police in Bijapur or Talegaon Dabhade.
"On Tuesday morning, they approached the police station and filed a missing person's complaint," Sali said.
The officer said by that time, Pujari's two friends had informed the family members about their trip to Ghorwadeshwar. "They had already begun the search. We, too, joined the search with the help of the Wanyajeev Rakshak Maval organization and Shivdurga Mitra Pratishthan. We found Pujari's chappals at the edge," Sali said.
Nilesh Garade of the Wanayjeev Rakshak Maval told TOI that during the search, the victim's body was found 150ft down in the gorge. "We recovered the body around 9pm and sent it to a hospital for postmortem," Garade said.