By Neena Bhandari, IANS,
Sydney : The body of an Indian origin boy who had gone missing two weeks ago was found Thursday in a creek near his home in suburban Melbourne.
Nine-year-old Manohar Yadav, who was adopted two years ago from an orphanage in Mumbai, was last seen Aug 7 walking from his home towards a nearby park in the Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn.
Manohar’s distraught parents, mother Aarti and father Kailash, Thursday identified their son’s body after construction workers found it in Gardiner’s Creek that runs along the edge of the park about 400 metres from the family home, close to where Victoria Police had early in their search found his blue slippers.
“It’s a very sad ending unfortunately. He’s been missing for two weeks so it was an ending that was probably to be expected. It’s probable that he washed down from further up,” Sergeant Graham Rodgers told reporters.
“I don’t know why it (body) had not been found earlier. It may have been snagged, it may have been underwater for a period of time and recent rains just brought it to the surface,” Rodgers added.
The discovery of the body confirmed the worst fears of Manohar’s parents, who, along with their two daughters, were Thursday coming to terms with the tragedy.
The Auburn South primary school, where Manohar was a Class four student, was also in mourning.
The school principal told Australian Associated Press: “He was a lovely, happy, cheerful kid. His English wasn’t fantastic but he was going to a language school in Melbourne.”