Overloaded boat capsize in Bengal, three feared drowned
A National Disaster Response Force team was engaged in rescue operation from Thursday night, police said, adding the search was intensified from Friday morning.”
Three persons, including two minors, were missing and feared drowned when a boat with around 70 persons and two-wheelers capsized in the Bhairab river in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district on Thursday night, officials said
The boat, plying from Kacharipara area to Garibpur village, overturned only a few metres from the shore around 7.30 pm. Locals said in their haste to return home, a lot of people crowded the boat ignoring the boatman’s warnings.
While most of the passengers managed to swim back to shore, locals swung in to rescue the others.
Those missing have been identified as Al Amin (18 months), Umme Salma (4) and her mother Jahura Bibi (40). While Al Amin is a resident of Brindabanpur village, Salma and her mother are residents of Kalyanpur village and were returning from the last rites of a youth.
”On Thursday, my daughter Jahura and granddaughter Umme came to participate in the last rites of a relative. The boat capsized when they were returning home,” Jahura’s father Abdul Salam Mondal said.
”The rescue operation is going on very slowly. Till 11 am, the rescuers couldn’t even pull the boat out. Only around midday could they locate the boat,” he alleged.
Sub divisional officer, Domkal, Dhivya Loganathan, said that they could not confirm whether any person was drowned. ”We have heard that three persons are missing, but none has lodged any complaint so far,” she said.
A National Disaster Response Force team was engaged in rescue operation from Thursday night, Loganathan said, adding the search was intensified from Friday morning.”
