Early this year, a team from Shivdurga Mitra Mandal, a climbing and rescue organisation based in Lonavla, was called to Naneghat to assist with a search operation. A man had gone missing from the popular trekking destination on January 11, and his two-wheeler was found abandoned near the edge of the valley a day later. When consistent attempts at finding him failed, the authorities turned to Shivdurga, whose volunteers reached the ghat  on January 19.

“We scoured the entire area for hours till we found two bottles of poison and a half-eaten packet of chips at one spot. We reasoned that this could be where he jumped off, and started climbing down the cliff from there,” says 50-year-old Sunil Gaikwad, who heads the Mitra Mandal. Their hunch proved right; they found his body and brought it up the cliff, so that it could be handed over to his kin.