11 of 18 aboard ill-fated boat rescued

Aurangabad: Eleven of the 18 people who were aboard the boat that capsized in the Punpun near Kalen village in Aurangabad district on Tuesday were rescued by State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) jawans till Wednesday. The SDRF has also recovered two bodies and search is on for the five missing persons, including a woman.
According to Aurangabad DM Kanwal Tanuj, the deceased were identified as Sanjay Sao and Maheshwari Devi of Khudowa village.
Their bodies have been handed over to their kin after postmortem. The two families will get Rs 4 lakh each as compensation, Tanuj said and added the boat that originated from Khudowa capsized due to overloading.
Disaster management department (DMD)'s Ashok Kumar Das said the rescued were identified as Rambricha Sao, Arvind Kumar, Mantu Kumar, Amod Kumar, Anil Kumar, Neuri Paswan, Vikas Kumar, Lila Devi, Surendra Sharma, Kedar Prasad and Rakesh Kumar, all residents of different villages of Obra and Daudnagar blocks. Rakesh, one of the survivors, expressed his gratitutde to the administration for reaching help to the drowning people in time. "The government must construct a bridge over the Punpun so that people do not have to risk their lives by travelling in overcrowded boats in the river," he said.