A government official in India has been suspended after he ordered a reservoir drained to recover his $1,200 phone: It took three days to pump two million liters of water from the Kherkatta dam, after the food inspector Rajesh Vishwas dropped his cellphone while taking a selfie. The BBC reports it.
Then, needless to say, the phone was found, but at that point it was too damaged to work. Vishwas said it contained sensitive government data and needed to be recovered, but was accused of abusing his position and suspended.
The official initially called divers to help, then paid for a pump and explained that he had received verbal permission from a fellow local official to drain “some water into a nearby canal”. The pump ran for several days, emptying about two million liters of water, enough to irrigate 600 hectares of agricultural land. The emptying was halted by the arrival of another water department official, following a complaint: “Vishwas has been suspended until an investigation is opened. Water is an essential resource and cannot be wasted in this way,” Priyanka Shukla, an official on the scene told The National newspaper.
