Rajesh Vishwas, a food inspector, dropped his smartphone into the water at Kherkatta dam last Sunday when he wanted to take a selfie. Divers first attempted to retrieve the device. When that proved unsuccessful, he paid for a pump to drain the dam. Vishwas said he received verbal permission from a colleague, but that turned out to be wrong.
The pump ran at full speed for three days. Two million liters of water later – reportedly enough to irrigate 6 square kilometers of farmland – the man finally had his smartphone back. Although the device had suffered so much water damage by then that it no longer worked.
The man has been suspended until an investigation is carried out, according to a competent official. Vishwas denies having abused his position of power. The water he drained, he said, came from the overflow section of the dam and was “unfit for use.”
An Indian newspaper shared the following images of the dam on their Twitter account.