Boat capsizes in Jhelum River in J-K’s Pulwama: 2 missing, 7 rescued

Two people went missing after a boat capsized in the Jhelum River in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama district on Wednesday. According to the officials, there were nine labourers onboard the boat – out of which seven have been rescued.

Teams from the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), police, and other locals are searching to rescue the missing people.

According to the police, the two missing people are residents of Uttar Pradesh.

“Nine people were crossing the river; They were doing some work on the other side of the river. Unfortunately, the boat capsized…The State Disaster Response Force, police administration, and paramilitary forces are carrying out a rescue operation,” Pampore Tehsildar Asif Ali said, as quoted by news agency ANI.

A similar incident took place last month in which seven people, including two children and their mother, were killed after a boat capsized in the Jhelum River in the Gandbal area. According to the police, mostly all children onboard studied in the Kendriya Vidyalaya in Sonwar across the river.

The incident occurred on April 16 at around 8 am as the wooden boat headed east from Gandabal towards Batwara in the Jammu & Kashmir capital, with 15 passengers on board.

According to locals and survivors of the boat tragedy incident, there was just a distance of 500 meters between the two banks they were travelling. However, they were forced to make the treacherous trip across in the boats because the nearest bridge was 2km away, adding that a footbridge along the accident spot has been under construction for nearly a decade.

Following the incident, the Jammu and Kashmir government provided an ex gratia relief of ₹five lakh to each family who lost their loved ones and ₹50,000 to each of those who have been injured.