It would have been just another morning on June 29, but little did the family of three-and-half-year-old Sanju know that their lives would be turned upside down when the toddler would go missing. The child had apparently gone after his father into a nearby forest in the interior Uyyalapalli village of Kaluvaya mandal in Andhra Pradesh’s Nellore district, and never made it back home. Ever since he went missing, Sanju’s family, neighbours and local police have been searching along the forest area of Veligonda. Around 50 police personnel, along with a dog squad and a drone operating system, have been roped in to trace the boy, besides local residents. The police said that a total of around 150 people are involved in the search.
According to Dandu Varalakshmi, the missing boy's mother, he would regularly accompany his father who grazes sheep, for some distance, before walking back home. In a video, Varalakshmi can be seen breaking down as she says, "Except for uttering Amma-Nanna (Mom-Dad), he could not speak anything. He was here at home till 8 am but later I could not find him. Thinking he might have gone with his father, I went there to check but he was not there as well. Since then, we have been searching everywhere for him for the last eight days."
The police said that an analysis of the drone camera's footage has not turned up any clues about Sanju’s whereabouts. The police have also combed around 15 kilometres of the forest stretch but have been unable to find Sanju. As per the police, the forest is close to the family’s residence.
Kaluvaya sub-inspector and Station House Officer Anjaneyulu said, "Along with our police teams, around 100 people have joined us to search for the boy but we haven't been able to find him. The dog squad halted at the place where the boy could have roamed."
When TNM asked if the police saw any kidnapping angle, he said, “It is less likely that this is a case of kidnapping, as a few people from the village claimed that they saw him walking towards the forest. We are also analysing the tower dump (data related to the locations of mobile photos using mobile towers in the area) to see if there were any new persons here on the day he went missing. It may take some time.”
According to the police, they have also checked water bodies and lakes along the area, considering the possibility that Sanju could have fallen into one. The SI further stated that while they would continue their search, a simultaneous operation to find the boy is underway along the borders and villages of Kadapa district.