GUWAHATI: Ruprekha Senapati who was among the passengers in the boat and has lost her husband in the Brahmaputra river incident has claimed that there were no safety measures or any precautions taken to prevent such an incident from happening.
Among the two missing persons, one person was a teacher identified as Indraswar Bora.
He was a resident of Nowboicha, Rampur in Lakhimpur. He is a non-salaried teacher at the Rampur Rajgarh High School.
According to reports, on the day of the incident, Indreshwar along with his wife Ruprekha Senapati went to visit the Dhekiakhuwa Naamghar.
The incident took place when they were returning from the Naam Ghar in the ferry. After the incident took place, the wife had been rescued while the husband is reported missing.
Ruprekha said that there were no safety measures or any precautions taken to prevent such an incident from happening.
"I screamed for help to rescue my husband. Boats and ferry were there even people also but nobody had listened to my voice and didn't come forward. Even the people who were equipped to help and were capable of saving others just stood there idly and were watching the incident unfold in front of their eyes without moving a finger to help," Indraswar's wife Ruprekha said.
During the rescue operation, a bag was recovered which is suspected to belong to Indraswar. In the bag Aadhar Card, voter Card of Ruprekha Senapati found.
On the other hand, it's been more than 36 hours since the Nimatighat boat accident took place, however, the rescue operation team is yet to track two missing passengers. Meanwhile, rescue operations established contacts with 92 persons, of which 89 were rescued alive. The missing persons have been identified as Jaan Baruah of Lakhimpur and Dr Bikramjit Baruah of Jorhat. SDRF Team deployed: State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) of Jorhat, Golaghat, Garmur (Majuli) and Bokakhat are conducting search operations.
DRF Team Deployed: 1st Bn. NDRF team stationed at Jorhat and 12th Bn. NDRF team from Sivasagar Dhemaji and Itanagar are conducting search operations. The incident is said to have taken place in Jorhat's Nimati Ghat, which is about 350 kilometres from Guwahati. Earlier a similar incident took place in North Guwahati in 2018 which resulted in several losses of lives. Of the two boats, one was a government passenger ferry that belonged to the Inland Water Transport department and the other was a public boat. The government ferry was coming from Majuli while the other boat was moving in towards the opposite direction.