boat tragedy: Six dead, 6 rescued, 3 still missing

Six people, including a 35-year-old mother and her two school-going sons, died when a boat capsized in the swollen Jhelum river, 5 km from the city centre of Lal Chowk in Srinagar on Tuesday morning.
Srinagar Deputy Commissioner Bilal Bhat said that there were fifteen persons on board at the time of the incident. He reported that six persons had died and six more had been saved. Among them three are currently undergoing treatment in a stable condition, while three have been discharged from the hospital.
SSP Srinagar city, Ashish Kumar Mishra, overseeing the rescue operation, stated that they deployed SDRF, NDRF, and Marcos personnel to locate the missing persons.

IGP Kashmir, Vidhi Kumar Birdi, stated that early this morning, the Ram Munshi Bagh Police Station received information that a boat ferrying 15 individuals had capsized in the locality. They swiftly responded and launched rescue operations. He mentioned that in the initial inquiry, it was discovered that 15 people were on board when the incident took place. Among them, six people were retrieved and six others were rescued.
Search operations are underway to locate the remaining three individuals. “We have also alerted the police stations located on the banks of the river Jehlum to keep an eye out for any bodies and to launch search operations to locate the missing bodies,” he added.

Meanwhile, the deceased have been identified as Shabir Ahmad Bhat, son of Bashir Ahmad Bhat; Razia, daughter of Ghulam Mohd Gojree; Gulzar Ahmad Dar, son of Mohd Jamal Dar; Firdousa, wife of Fayaz Ahmad Malik, all residents of Gandbal; Tanvir Fayaz, son of Fayaz Ahmad Malik; and Mudasir Fayaz, son of Fayaz Ahmad Malik, both residents of Shivpora.
As per officials, three persons, identified as Farhan Waseem, Hazik Showket, and Showket Ahmad Shikh, all residents of Gandbal, remain missing.
The Kashmir Valley has been receiving heavy rain since Saturday and the Jhelum river was in spate in the morning.

Scenes of beating chests, slapping foreheads, and wailing relatives and neighbours unfolded at the site, with many holding the previous regimes responsible for the incident. They lamented that had the bridge been completed, these precious lives could have been saved.
A grieving mother, who lost her son in the incident, said while wailing on the death of her beloved son, “Who will bring my son back? Who will ask me for lunch? Who will I call now, as he was the apple of my eyes?” She expressed anger over the government’s expenditure on the bridge project, highlighting that no amount of money could bring her son back.