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Indian Official Suspended after He Drains Reservoir to Retrieve Phone He Dropped While Taking Selfie

Indian villagers collect water for drinking from a well running dry at Padal village of the district of Samba on June 2, 2019. (AFP/Getty Images)
Indian villagers collect water for drinking from a well running dry at Padal village of the district of Samba on June 2, 2019. (AFP/Getty Images)
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Indian Official Suspended after He Drains Reservoir to Retrieve Phone He Dropped While Taking Selfie

Indian villagers collect water for drinking from a well running dry at Padal village of the district of Samba on June 2, 2019. (AFP/Getty Images)
Indian villagers collect water for drinking from a well running dry at Padal village of the district of Samba on June 2, 2019. (AFP/Getty Images)

A government official in India has been suspended from his job after he ordered a water reservoir to be drained so he could retrieve his smartphone, which he had dropped while taking a selfie.

Food inspector Rajesh Vishwas dropped his Samsung smartphone in Kherkatta dam in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh last week, The Times of India newspaper reported.

Vishwas first asked local divers to jump into the reservoir to find the device, claiming it contained sensitive government data. But after the initial efforts to retrieve his smartphone failed, he asked for the reservoir to be emptied using diesel pumps.

Over the next three days, more than 2 million liters of water were pumped out from the reservoir, which is enough to irrigate at least 1,500 acres of land during India’s scorching summer, local media reported.

In videos that went viral on social media, Vishwas is seen sitting under a red umbrella as diesel pumps run to drain water from the reservoir.

Vishwas told local media the water in the reservoir was unusable for irrigation and that he had received permission from a senior official to drain it.

The smartphone was eventually retrieved but wouldn’t even start because it was waterlogged.

Authorities later suspended Vishwas after he was widely criticized for wasting water resources.

India is one of the most water-stressed countries and extreme temperatures had led to severe water scarcity, causing crop losses, forest fires and cuts to power.

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Scientist Bottles Smell of Bones to Help Solve Cold Cases

Belgian research scientist Clement Martin, who works with Belgium's federal police to create a "perfume" that mimics the smell of dried human bones to help sniffer dogs find long lost remains, looks at human bones in his laboratory in Gembloux, Belgium January 15, 2025. REUTERS/Yves Herman
Belgian research scientist Clement Martin, who works with Belgium's federal police to create a "perfume" that mimics the smell of dried human bones to help sniffer dogs find long lost remains, looks at human bones in his laboratory in Gembloux, Belgium January 15, 2025. REUTERS/Yves Herman
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Scientist Bottles Smell of Bones to Help Solve Cold Cases

Belgian research scientist Clement Martin, who works with Belgium's federal police to create a "perfume" that mimics the smell of dried human bones to help sniffer dogs find long lost remains, looks at human bones in his laboratory in Gembloux, Belgium January 15, 2025. REUTERS/Yves Herman
Belgian research scientist Clement Martin, who works with Belgium's federal police to create a "perfume" that mimics the smell of dried human bones to help sniffer dogs find long lost remains, looks at human bones in his laboratory in Gembloux, Belgium January 15, 2025. REUTERS/Yves Herman

A Belgian research scientist is working with the federal police to create a scent that mimics the smell of dried human bones to help sniffer dogs find long lost remains.

Clement Martin has already isolated the smell of decomposing human flesh and that is now used to train Belgium's cadaver dogs.

But once the soft tissue has disappeared, the scent molecules of the remaining bones become significantly fewer, scientific researcher Martin told Reuters.

"Bones smell different over the years too. A 3-year-old bone will smell different to a 10-year-old one and even 20 years," he said.

Skeletal remains are porous too and absorb smells from the surrounding environment, from the soil to pine trees.

"In the situation of cold cases, there was a gap. Our dogs were not able to find dried bones," Kris Cardoen, head of federal police dog training, told Reuters.

At a police training centre outside Brussels, inspector Kristof Van Langenhove and his springer spaniel Bones demonstrated part of the training with Martin's corpse scent.

Cardoen hid some tissues between cinder blocks and only contaminated a few. The dog then barked when he found the smell.

"The scent of death is one of the three tools we use during the basic training of our human remains dog," Cardoen said.

Cadaver dogs require 1,000 hours of training and the country only ever has four at any one time.

Martin is using different samples of dried bones to develop the smell, including those of an unidentified man found in a suitcase, which are kept in a glass cylinder to allow the molecules to permeate an enclosed space ready for extraction.

"It's a bit like a perfumer developing his perfume, he's going to mix different aromas," Martin said.