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Police divers in Chicago
searched Wednesday Des Plaines River for a 24-year-old woman believed to have
drowned while trying to put a religious statue in the water.
Anu Solanki, of Indian origin and a resident of
unincorporated Des Plaines in Cook County
in Illinois,
had gone to the river to immerse a broken statue of Lord Ganesh on Monday. Her husband,
Dignesh Solanki, told the Associated Press that his wife wanted to dispose the
statue, the Hindu God for wisdom and good luck, in the river, following a
religious leader’s instructions. The statue had been used at their wedding last
year.
Solanki’s car, a Honda Civic, had been found by relatives in
a forest preserve parking lot near the suburb of Wheeling,
Chicago. It had
its door unlocked and the motor running, Steve Mayberry, a spokesperson for the
Cook County Forest Preserve District said, according to the Chicago Tribune. Her
relatives reported that one of the woman’s purses and a laptop were missing,
while a second purse, which had money in it, was still in the car.
Divers from the Wheeling Fire Department and other agencies
used sonar to search the river about a mile south of where the car was found
near Des Plaines River Dam No. 1, while officers in a forest preserve police
boat searched 6 miles south, Mayberry said. Moreover, Cook County
sheriff’s police used a helicopter and a canine unit in a search of nearby
woods. After searching the river for more than 6 hours, police found no sign of
Solanki or the idol.
Relatives planned to distribute leaflets on Thursday near
the Westin hotel and the river in hope that someone knew something about the
woman.
Mayberry also said that police have no suspect in this case.
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