PATIALIA: For 26 monsoons, the Bhakra canal’s water hid a grisly secret as three families of Ropar grappled with grief and hope. On Sunday, a mangled Maruti Omni, rusted and falling to pieces, was winched out of the depths, still holding a child’s school uniform, luggage, personal belongings and a few bones — the remains of four missing persons. Finally, there is closure for the families who had never given up a search that almost drove them to penury. The photographs of Munni Lal, Tej Ram, Surjit Singh and Surjit’s eight-year-old son Kalu that hung on the walls of their homes all these years have now been garlanded. And their kin can say goodbye. They were returning from a wedding on Oct 17, 2000, in the Omni that Tej had bought only a month earlier. They never reached home.Families hired divers, sold land in hunt for ‘vanished’ OmniThe families of Omni’s occupants in Kotla village (80km from Chandigarh) desperately looked for them. They hired divers to scour the canal, sold off land to keep the search alive, but in vain. The case went cold. The breakthrough came when local diver Kamalpreet Saini plunged into the deadly currents to look for another missing person and spotted the heavily corroded van, 32ft deep on the canal bed. After a nearly three-hour operation, the vehicle was pulled to the surface. According to Saini, the rear portion of the van and its roof were badly damaged, possibly due to impact and prolonged exposure to strong currents and water pressure. A few skeletal remains, clothing, shoes and the school uniform of the child were recovered. Sita Devi, wife of Munni Lal, told TOI the tragedy had shattered their family financially and emotionally. “His parents died, pining for him. Due to lack of proof, we could not even obtain his death certificate,” she said. Tej Ram’s son Bhupinder, who was five at the time, recalled their hardships. “I am told my father sold 3 kanals of land (around 16,335 sq ft) to buy the Omni. We sold another 5 kanals (27,225 sq ft) to finance search operations.” The families borrowed heavily to hire private divers after official searches failed. “Despite hardships, my brother and I somehow managed to study till Class XII,” added Bhupinder. Saini said simply attaching chains and cables to the wreck was extremely dangerous. “But it brought closure to the families,” he added. Kiratpur Sahib SHO inspector Rahul Sharma said the families, with the help of local divers, recovered the van themselves. Some bone fragments that were found were immersed according to religious rituals. The families held a collective Ardas at Gurdwara Patalpuri Sahib in Ropar.