The body of one of the four passengers (23), who were travelling by a car that had fallen into the backwaters of Koteshwar dam in Uttarakhand’s Tehri Garhwal district, has been recovered while a search operation is in progress for the missing three.
The missing persons are suspected to be dead by the district authorities, who launched the search operation on Thursday morning.
Barjesh Bhatt, disaster management officer (DDO), Tehri Garhwal, said four passengers had started from Dehradun for Rudraprayag by a car on Tuesday.
“Their family members got in touch with the police when they failed to connect with them over their mobile phones. On Wednesday, the police started the search for the missing persons, including tracking the closed circuit TV (CCTV) footage, along the route and the last location on their mobile phones, which turned out to be Bhagirathipuram zero point near Koteshwar dam. Some bags and other stuff were found floating in the backwaters of the dam in the evening. This made us suspect that the car was likely to have fallen into the dam,” said Bhatt.
State disaster response force (SDRF) and local personnel along with divers launched the search operation on Thursday morning to retrieve the bodies from the backwaters.
“The body of the woman, who has been identified as Diksha Rawat, was found floating in the water. We are trying to retrieve the car. We are expecting that the bodies of the three missing passengers will be inside the vehicle,” he added.
The other three passengers, who are feared dead, have been identified as Abhishek Rawat (25), Ashutosh Rawat (22), and the driver, Avtar Singh Rana (25), Bhatt added.
Koteshwar dam is located on the Bhagirathi river. It is situated around 22 kilometres (km) downstream of Tehri dam in Tehri Garhwal district. It receives water from the Tehri dam and the reservoir’s surface area is around 29 kilometres (km).
