Indian Official In Hot Water For Draining Reservoir To Retrieve Phone He Lost Taking A Selfie

iStockphoto / lakshmiprasad S

A government official in India found himself in hot water after draining a large reservoir to retrieve an smartphone he lost while attempting to take a selfie.

Rajesh Vishwas is a food inspector and is currently suspended after draining the water reservoir behind the Kherkatta dam to get his lost Samsung back. The kicker is by the time he drained the reservoir and all of the vital water was lost, the phone was so water logged it was useless.

According to a report from the Associated Press, the man first attempted to get local divers to retrieve his Samsung phone from the Kherkatta dam in Chhattisgarh last week after he dropped it in the water taking a selfie. He reportedly told the divers his phone “contained sensitive government data.”

The divers weren’t able to retrieve his smartphone so he did the only reasonable thing and drained the entire water reservoir using diesel pumps to get it back.

Indian Official Drains Reservoir, Finds Himself In Hot Water

This was not an insignificant amount of water. We’re not talking about a tiny pond. In the video below, the official can be seen sitting under a red umbrella while others are working:

According to the AP, the man had over 2 million liters of water drained which is apparently enough to irrigate 1,500 acres during India’s Summer.

He did eventually retrieve the lost Samsung smartphone. However, as mentioned above, it was completely useless after sitting in water for three days.

The footage above was widely shared on social media. The *food inspector* was suspended and it’s really unclear how or why he was able to order this reservoir drained in the first place given his title.

According to the AP, instead of just admitting what he did was wrong he then doubled down and told local media he had permission from officials to drain the water reservoir, and that the water was unusable for irrigation, neither of which was true.