Bengaluru: Little did Abhinav and his friends know that a weekend night-out along with their Delhi-based friends would turn nightmarish as they and 24 others from different groups lost their way in the Savandurga forest range in Magadi under Ramanagar district early on Sunday morning.
Abhinav, a resident of Madiwala, and his five friends – Chetan, Sudhanshu, Siddhant, Rajat and Sanchit, who hail from Delhi, got stuck on a 80-metre high hillock on Sunday morning after they lost their way after it started raining.
They reached the plains only around 6 am after a trekker from Kerala made an SOS call to the Fire and Emergency Control room. All the five have completed their graduation from Bengaluru University.
Abhinav, who is from Bhopal, told Deccan Chronicle, “We left for Magadi around 2.30 am and reached Savandurga around 3.30 am. We waited for sometime to go to the hillock to watch the sunrise. A local woman offered to help us and even charged '100 from each group to show us the way. We were not aware that trekking is prohibited in the area as there were no signboards.”
He said, “After we lost our way, we chose to wait as none of us know Kannada. But one of the trekkers from Kerala panicked and called the Fire and Emergency Control room as we were heading back to the plains.”
After the SOS, a team of officials from the police and fire and emergency services rushed to the area and helped the trekkers. The police said that the trekkers started climbing around 4 am, but as it started raining soon after, they lost their way. “Around 6 am, we saw some of them coming down and we helped the others get down safely,” the police said.
A senior police officer said, “Fortunately, no untoward incident took place and they were stuck for a couple of hours. They were misguided by a local woman. All of them have submitted a written statement mentioning they are safe."
As per procedure, trekkers are supposed to seek prior permission from the administration and police before going on a trek so that officials can rush to their help in case of an emergency, a police official said.
