The body of the 19- year old student of Haridwar Engineering College Rohan Arora, who had been swept away in the Ganga at Bairagi camp on November 30, was recovered on Thursday noon.
The body was handed over to the district hospital authorities, though it was not clear till filing of this report whether postmortem had been done before the body was handed over.
Notably, the family members of the deceased boy had appealed to the district magistrate to hand over the body to them sans autopsy.
The incident had happened when a group of boys of Haridwar Engineering College had gone for sight- seeing, bunking their regular classes.
They had initially planned to go straight to Chilla dam, but later changed the plan and decided to have dip in the Ganga at Bairgai camp on way to Chilla hydro power project. Rohan was washed away in the swirling current of water at the camp while bathing.
SO Shyampur Girish Chandra Sharma said, “The rescue team headed by CO City Chandra Mohan Singh and comprising Jal police personnel and contractual divers traced the body of the boy following three days’ search around noon on Thursday. The body was found on the riverbed at Shyampur Kangri village near the newly constructed bridge that connects Kangri village with Kankhal. We sent the body to the district hospital.”
It is not the first time that a case of drowning has happened here. In July, two school children from Nirmal Ashram Rishikesh had drowned. Earlier, in May, Aabida Hasan, daughter of Uttar Pradesh Cabinet Minister Shahid Manzoor had also drowned in the Ganga after she had slipped in the river and got caught in the eddies of the swirling water.
CO City, Chandra Mohan Singh said that there is a need to conduct a thorough survey along the Ganga canal stretching from Haridwar to Roorkee to have the danger zones marked and warning boards put up.
“Regrettably, the Uttar Pradesh irrigation department is concerned solely with using the Ganga canal for its irrigation purposes. They are bothered the least about the maintenance of the canal,” he said.
“The ashrams situated along the river, on their part, do not care to have divers nor do they care to put caution boards. Under these circumstances, the State Government should deploy more divers. Several bridges and ghats were built before the 2010 Kumbh Mela. But the number of divers deployed to monitor things is not enough,” he said. “We hope initiatives would be taken to add to the number of divers ahead of the upcoming Ardh Kumbh Mela slated to begin in January next,” he added.