Vijayapura: The bomb squad of the District Armed Reserve Police received an unusual and strange request from a few citizens of the city couple of days ago.

The squad, which normally has the job of checking for the presence of detonators or arms for the safety of VIPs, was surprised when the people asked them to locate a manhole of the underground drainage system.

This peculiar request was made by people of at least three localities of the city with the help of social activist Azeem Inamdar. The need to locate the manhole cropped up after a major blockage of the drainage line connecting at least four localities in the city.

“Because of the choking of the pipeline, the dirty water entered at least two thousand houses in Halli colony, Tipu Nagar, Alika Roza, Balsing Colony and Naubhagh areas of the city. The people are facing a miserable situation after the foul-smelling water flowed into their homes. The blockage needs to be cleared for the smoother flow of drainage water,” said Azeem Inamdar.

He further explained that it was when they contacted the City Corporation cleaning staff that they realized that there is a major obstacle to cleaning the choked drainage.

“We found that after laying the underground drainage pipeline, the contractor laid a tar road over the pipeline without raising the height of the manhole to the road’s level for easy location of the manhole. It was the job of the City Corporation to see to it that the height of the manhole is raised for proper identification,” Inamdar said.

As they were clueless about the location of the manholes, which were essential for the machines to clean up the chocked drainage, they had to look for a solution to find the same.

“It was impractical to keep digging up several feet of road to locate the manhole. That is when we had this idea to use a metal detector to locate the manhole,” he Inamdar added.

Unfortunately, even after speaking to a couple of engineering colleges, who normally keep such equipment for their students for practical purposes, they were not able to procure a metal detector.

“Finally, the only people left for us to approach was the bomb squad. For that, we requested the Gandhi Chowk police station and Superintendent of Police, with the help of the City Corporation, to provide us with the service of the bomb squad to detect the manholes,” Inamdar explained.

According to the social activist, initially, even the DAR police was a little surprised to hear their request. However, they obliged and located two manholes using the equipment.

“Even though they could not locate the third manhole because of the heavy presence of other metal items in the area, they gave us a link to the same. It will make our job a little easier now to locate the third manhole and clean up the choked drainage,” he added.

Meanwhile, admitting their oversight, Harsha Shetty, the City Corporation Commissioner said that the previous officials should have ensured that the manholes were clearly marked to avoid this inconvenience.

“However, since the manholes have been identified, we will try to raise the height to make sure that the covering of the manholes is visible. It will be helpful in the future for the clearing of clogged drainages,” Shetty added.