mumbai

Updated: Sep 01, 2017 11:43 IST

The body of a senior Bombay Hospital doctor, who went missing near Elphinstone Road on Tuesday following heavy rains that lashed Mumbai, was found on Thursday near Worli sea shore, his family friends said.

Dr Deepak Amarapukar, 58, a senior gastroenterologist, was on his way back home in central Mumbai’s Prabhadevi in his car, when he decided to abandon the car and his driver and started walking to his house, a family friend said.

His colleagues at Bombay Hospital got a call around 7:15am from the police about the body found in Worli. Another doctor added his body was completely swollen. His friends identified him by his wrist watch and the clothes he was wearing.

Dr Amarapukar called his wife at 6.50pm on Tuesday, 10 minutes before he became untraceable. Police said a few witnesses saw a person, who looked like Dr Amrapurkar, walking in the middle of Tulsi Pipe Road. The witnesses said they warned him about the heavy flow of water, but he continued to walk.

“People had noticed a person being swept away due to the flow of the water and lost grip of his umbrella. Bystanders then handed over the umbrella to police officials, which was later identified to be Dr Amarapurkar’s,” one of his colleagues said.

The Mumbai fire brigade, Mumbai Police and disaster management personnel from the civic body, along with divers from National Disaster Response Force (NRDF) checked five manholes in Elphinstone, Dadar, after his family lodged a missing person’s complaint. Amarapukar could have been sucked into a manhole near India Bulls One building. His port-mortem, which was conducted on Thursday morning, confirmed he had died because of drowning. The place where his body was found is near the mouth of a sewage drain that flows into the sea at Worli.

Dr Amarapukar is survived by his wife, Dr Anjali Amarapukar,a pathologist who works at BYL Nair Hospital, Mumbai Central, and his children, who are in the United States. A close family friend said that the family is traumatised with the incident. His son and daughter will arrive in the city on Saturday.

His colleagues who last saw him on Tuesday morning said he left the hospital by afternoon as his sister was visiting his family for Ganapati Utsav. “Most of us had decided to stay back in the hospital because of the rains and waterlogging,” said Dr Gautam Bhansali, his colleague.

Dr Sanjay Oak, a senior doctor in the city said, “When he was studying his general medicine in Sholapur, I was studying at Miraj. We came to Mumbai around the same time. He was a personal friend, and his demise is a big loss to the fraternity.”

Meanwhile, the Indian Medical Association said they will protest against the civic body for the mishap.

Incessant rains pounded India’s financial capital throughout on Tuesday flooding the city, which received 298 mm of rainfall, the highest in a day in August since 1997. The rains flooded vast areas of the city, throwing traffic out of gear on key arteries and affecting trains and flights services in the Maharashtra capital.

.