Twelve hours after their son disappeared, the Mohites finally accepted the inevitable, that Ajay had indeed fallen into the building's underground water tank and that while they ran themselves ragged, the body had been under their very noses all while.

Azad Maidan police say Ajay had wandered into the compound of his building, Poddar House on `A' Road, Churchgate, to play with the other kids on Wednesday evening. He was last seen at around 4.30 pm. Late in the evening, the boy's father, Vijay Mohite, panicked and registered a missing complaint with the Azad Maidan police. Wireless messages were flashed to nearby police stations and even the hospitals were checked, according to Sub-Inspector Sudhakar Kamble. Butto no avail.

Police suggested that the parents check the neighbourhood and specifically asked them if there was a water tank in the vicinity into which the boy could have stumbled. However, they replied in he negative, according to Kamble. On the contrary, the Mohites told the police that a suspicious-looking person had been spotted near the building since the last few days and that the boy may have been kidnapped by him.

However, the next day, a resident telephoned the police to report a piece of clothing visible at the bottom of the building's underground water tank. The fire brigade was intimated and fire tenders from both Nariman Point and Colaba rushed to the spot.

According to Sachin Talekar of the Colaba fire station, the water in the tank was about three metres deep. Moreover, the tank, which was under repairs, did not have a lid. Though repairs on the walls were complete, the lid had not been replaced, he said. After the water was pumped out, the body was fished out. The body was taken tohospital, which declared it as a death by drowning.

The contractor working on the underground tank has been arrested under Sections 304 (a) (negligence) and 34 (conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.