On Thursday, Kailash left his house at 8.30 pm to play with his friends, said his mother Kavita. He was last seen by neighbours at around 9.30 pm, playing alone on the ground floor. When Kailash failed to return home, frantic family members launched a search.

``We went to the police at 1.30 am,'' said Girdharilal Sachdev, Kailash's uncle and independent UMC corporator. Sachdev is also the builder of the apartments where the Kukrejas reside. The body was found around 8.30 am on Friday when a resident drawing water from the tank dropped her bucket into it, and asked the building watchman to retrieve it. ``When he peeped in to fetch the bucket, he saw the body floating,'' said theUlhasnagar Camp No 1 police who conducted the panchanama. V B Lokhande, Camp No 1 police station incharge, ruled out foul play and said, ``It appears to be a case of drowning. Once Kailash fell inside, he must have struggled a bit which is indicated by the muck from the insides of the tank found under his nails.''

The crippling water scarcity in this area has forced residents to dip pots and pans into underground storage tanks in their buildings. The tanks are often left open. Sneha Apartments is located on plot number 705, which has gained notoriety for having the maximum number of illegal structures which were allegedly built on a 19,000- sq yard plot originally reserved for a sports complex.

But Raju K Jagiasi, chairperson of the Water Supply and Sewerage Committee, Ulhasnagar Municipal Corporation, dismissed the idea that the death was in any way linked to the water scarcity. ``This area has the best water supply in the whole of Ulhasnagar,'' he claimed. Deputy Municipal Commissioner V N Joglekar wasmore forthright. ``What can I do if the boy died? I cannot be responsible for every death in Ulhasnagar,'' he told Express Newsline.