IIT Roorkee MBA Student Drowns in Ganga Canal, Body Recovered After Week-Long Search

February 17, 2026

Roorkee: An IIT Roorkee student drowned in the Ganga Canal in Haridwar. The deceased has been identified as Ashish Shukla (29), a resident of Varanasi and a second-year MBA student at IIT Roorkee. According to reports, Ashish had gone to the Ganga Canal with his friends on February 11th to bath. He slipped and was swept away.

Seeing the student drowning, his friends started shouting. Hearing the noise a huge crowd of people gathered nearby, although some people also tried to save him, but were unsuccessful.

NDRF and Army launched rescue operation

Ashish Shukla disappeared in the swift current of the Ganga Canal. The SDRF, Army, divers, and police launched a search for him. The Ganga Canal’s water was also turned off during this period, but he remained untraced.

On Monday, February 16, the water of Ganga Canal was closed again and the Bengal Engineering Group personnel, NDRF, SDRF, Police, Disaster Management and Water Police teams reached the spot. Around 20 professional divers were also specially called to search for the student.

These included renowned divers from around the country. A team of approximately 100 members was engaged in searching the Ganga Canal from Valmiki Ghat to Asaf nagar Jhal. After the accident, the SSP himself searched the Ganga Canal for the student by motorboat.

The body was found during the search operation.

During the search operation, the team recovered a body from the Ganga Canal on Tuesday morning. The body was identified as that of Ashish Shukla. Police have taken the body into custody and have begun the process of identification and further action.

For the past week, Ashish’s family and classmates had been waiting on the banks of the Ganga Canal, hoping for a miracle. After his body was recovered today, mourning descended on the entire IIT campus and his home in Varanasi. The police have sent the body for a postmortem.