Canacona: The mystery of a forest guard, Yogesh Velip (30) who went missing on Saturday morning after his duty hours from Khotigao Wildlife Sanctuary deepened as police failed to make any headway in finding any clues.
Yogesh Velip was on duty to mann the forest gate at Bella at Khotigao wild life sanctuary.
As per the complain filed by the family, Yogesh, from Ponsulemoll in Khotigao village had reported for duty as usual on Saturday morning and was seen by atleast three persons while he was on duty at Bella gate in Hedumol, Khotigao.
One of his family member’s told Herald that Yogesh had told his wife that he will come home for lunch in the afternoon.
Since he didn’t return till Saturday evening his family launched an extensive search along with his friends and later the villagers also joined to comb the forest around the area where he was last seen.
After an unsuccessfully search, his family filed a written complain at the Canacona police station.
The forest officials at Hathipaul were also intimated about the incident, his family members said.
Yogesh’s motorbike (GA-10-B-2087) along with the keys, his rain coat, bag, empty wallet with ATM card were found infront of the gate he was manning on that day.
The mobile phone which he was carrying however is switched off said sources.
Sources added that a truck carrying laterite stones was allowed to go inside the gate by Yogesh at about 10.30 am on Saturday and later a sand laden truck was also allowed inside by him.
With both the local forest office and police showing no interest to investigate the missing case till Sunday evening, hundreds of agitated locals marched to the Hauthipaul forest office to demand action.
Sources said the crowd went out of control and pelted stones at the forest office after they were not satisfied with the answers provided by the forest officials.
On Sunday, hundreds of villagers combed the forest area but the search yielded no results.
Later, local MLA and deputy speaker Isidore Fernandes, former minister Ramesh Tawadkar together with the aggrieved villagers met the local forest and police officials.
The officials promised to send a search team on Monday evening.
On Monday at 3 pm, about 50 policemen and forest officials conducted a joint search.
With police deploying all their resources, till late Monday evening to find the missing guard in the nearby areas the locals demanded that police should look beyond the assumption that the forest guard might had ended his life in the nearby forest.
Investigation officer PSI Swadesh Desai and Canacona PI were not available for comments on the theory doing the rounds in the village that Yogesh might have committed suicide.
