bdnews24.com
At least six passengers — including three of a family– were drowned when a boat capsized mid-river in Magura on Saturday.
“The accident occurred on the Nabaganga River near sadar upazila’s Buzruk Srikundi village around 2am,” Sub-Inspector Liton Kumar of Magura Sadar Police Station said.
Locals said 12 residents of Srikundi were returning on a boat from a Kirtan (Hindu devotional song sessions) in Boroi village, across the Nabaganga.
The boat suddenly overturned in the mid-river amidst heavy fog, they said.
The villagers immediately got into the rescue act and fished out the body of one Brijit Pramanik, 65. Five more bodies were recovered in the morning.
The other deceased were identified as – Nirapad Pramanik, 60, his younger brother Prajit Pramanik, 57, his grandson ‘Dipti’, 10 and Uttam Pramanik, 37.
The police officer said the accident might have been due to overloading. Most of the passengers also could not swim to safety, despite knowing how to swim, because they were in heavy winter clothers, he said.
But some could be rescued. The Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO) Tadibur Rahman Khan was supervising rescue operations in the morning.
The police official said that the villagers had recovered all the dead bodies before divers from Khulna could reach the site of the accident.
