Techie found three days after he went missing inside forest near Hassan

MYSORE/HASSAN: When Srikanth Balaji, the techie who went missing inside the rainforest in Hassan, surfaced on Tuesday ending three days of suspense, he could not contain his happiness.
As he arrived at Sakaleshpur, 42 kms from Hassan, the 24-year-old broke down seeking his family and friends and hugged his father Amaran. The youth from Chennai, who went missing inside Kempuhole forest near Sakleshpur on Friday was rescued from the forested area by forest officials much to the relief of the family members and friends, who went with him on a trek but lost him within hours.
Balaji is a software engineer attached to Infosys in Chennai. The mechanical engineer accompanied by twelve of his colleagues from Chennai planned trekking in Kempuhole forest and booked Chennai Trekking Club to guide them, Sakaleshpur DySP P V Sneha said. They all reached near the forest late on Thursday and took to four days trekking early on Friday. The trekking party included a girl and a Belgium national.
The party started their trek early Friday morning. However, Balaji got separated from the group late in the evening leading the teammates to panic. Since they were deep inside the forested area, they could not call him owing to lack of cellphone network. The party came out of the woods on Saturday but didn't inform the cops immediately, the police said. According to IGP (southern range) B K Singh, a missing complaint was filed with police on Monday night after his father reached the area.
The group entered the wooded area from Bangalore-Mangalore highway and had gone 5 km deep. They were equipped with tents and stocked food for four-day trekking.
Balaji has told the foresters that he got separated from the group late in the evening and struggled hard to reunite with the group. When all his efforts went futile, he went about finding the human habitat and spent three days inside the forest. Kempuhole forest range forest officer M K Devaraja told TOI that they got to know about his missing from one of his family members. Balaji had managed to contact his relatives over his cellphone and alerted his parents too. Two teams were formed to search for the missing youth.
CELLPHONE TOWER HELPED THE TEAMS
The team zeroed his location following his call to his father Amaran early on Tuesday. He mobile got switched off after the call got connected as the battery drained. The foresters with the help of the police tracked the location locating the tower from which the call originated. This led us to him, the RFO explained. "We traced him through mobile tower location and our team members reached him inside the forest on Tuesday afternoon," he stated.
Balaji's parents have accused the organizers of not cooperating with them after they got to know about their son's missing. A senior cop, who didn't wished to be named, said the organisers didn't share much information. The cop, however, said the twelve members of the group were cooperative.