A senior government official who vanished when a mechanised boat carrying 29 passengers overturned in the Brahmaputra river in Assam’s Dhubri district, close to the Bangladesh border, is being sought after, an official said on Friday. The 28 additional persons, some of whom were schoolchildren, were saved by a group of SDRF members, BSF jawans, and locals, the official reported.
Sanju Das, a Dhubri Circle officer, has not yet been located, according to the district authority. After inspecting a region in Aminur Char damaged by erosion, Das and two other officials were heading back to Dhubri (riverine area). After hitting a bridge post at Bhashanir, which is about 3 km from Dhubri town, the mechanised country boat that was transporting them capsized on Thursday, according to Deputy Commissioner Anbamuthan M P, who spoke to reporters after leaving the scene of the accident.
The search for Das was ongoing, according to Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, but “it is not obvious why the circle officer and the others were on a boat meant to carry cargo.” He prayed for the injured to get better quickly. The boat has been found, and efforts are being made to lift it with the use of cranes, according to officials. Five of the rescued have been listed as having serious conditions and have been admitted to a neighbouring hospital, they said.
On Friday morning, a delegation from the Congress, including state working president Rana Goswami and lawmakers Wajed Ali Choudhury, Jadav Swargiary, and Abdul Batin Khandekar, visited the scene of the accident. According to Goswami, they will speak with the people who were saved and their families to determine whether any safety precautions were missed. He continued by saying that they will meet with district officials and request an investigation into the occurrence. Badruddin Ajmal, a Dhubri Lok Sabha MP who recently arrived in the state from New Delhi, has also asked for a high-level investigation into the incident. Ajmal urged the state government to provide the missing person’s kin an ex-gratia payment of Rs. 10 lakh.
(source : PTI)
