Gandhidham (Guj), Apr 11 (PTI) A surveyor of a private firm, who went missing while at work in the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat five days ago, was found dead in the desert, police said on Friday.

The body of Arnab Pal (55) was found near Bela village in Rapar taluka of Kutch district on Thursday evening, an official said.

As per a preliminary probe, Pal lost his way in the desert during a road survey and eventually died of dehydration. He was last seen on April 6, inspector J B Bubadia said.

“Pal, a resident of West Bengal, must have walked nearly 15 km in these five days after he got lost in the vast desert. According to doctors, he died due to dehydration. To ascertain the exact cause, we have decided to go for a panel post-mortem,” he said.

Rann of Kutch is a large area of salt marshes in the Thar Desert in Gujarat’s Kutch district.

Pal worked as a surveyor for a private firm and was surveying land for a solar project. He had reached the Bela Border Outpost (BoP) with his assistant, Chela Ram, and a driver on April 6.

The official said, “After making an entry at Bela BoP, the trio went into the desert for some distance in their vehicle. They then started walking, as there was no road ahead. After some distance, Pal and Chela Ram asked the driver to fetch water from the vehicle as they were not carrying any.” He said that while the driver went back for the water bottle, the duo kept walking, as Pal wanted to carry on with the survey.

Bubadia said while Chela Ram got exhausted and refused to walk further, Pal decided to go on to finish his work. When the driver returned with water, Chela Ram tried looking for Pal, who was nowhere to be seen.

“The driver and assistant arrived at the Border Security Force (BSF) camp at the BoP and sought help to locate Pal. A joint team of the police and BSF used drones in their search but couldn’t locate him. The local police found the body on Thursday evening,” he said. PTI COR PJT PD ARU