Indian official suspended after draining entire dam to find lost phone
A government official has been suspended after taking an unbelievable measure to find a phone he dropped in a dam while taking a selfie.
It’s not unheard of to go desperate lengths to retrieve a lost phone — but one man took these efforts to an astonishing level.
A government food inspector in India has been suspended after he ordered an entire reservoir with millions of litres of water to be drained when he dropped his Samsung device while taking a selfie.
According to the BBC, it took three days for Rajesh Vishwas to find his phone.
But by then, it was too broken to use from being so waterlogged.
Mr Vishwas has been accused of misusing his position, the outlet reported, despite claiming the phone held sensitive government data which needed saving.
The government official dropped his $1,200 phone into the Kherkatta Dam, in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh.
Indian media quoted a video statement by Mr Vishwas in which he said he paid for a diesel pump after local divers could not find the phone.
He reportedly said he had verbal permission from an official to drain “some water into a nearby canal”, and that the official even said it would help the farmers by giving them more water.
Over several days, the pump emptied out roughly two million litres (440,000 gallons) of water before another official who had received a complaint turned up to stop him.
The BBC reported a quote from Kanker district official, Priyanka Shukla, who said Mr Vishwas “ has been suspended until an inquiry”.
“Water is an essential resource and it cannot be wasted like this,” Mr Shukla said.
The state’s opposition BJP party’s national Vice-President tweeted: “When people are depending upon tankers for water facility in scorching summers, the officer has drained 41 lakh (hundred thousand) litres which could have been used for irrigation purpose for 1,500 acres of land.”
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