Muzaffarpur: Rescuers have recovered six bodies of the villagers who drowned after the boat they were traveling in capsized in Bagmati river at Madhurpatti village of Muzaffarpur district of Bihar, officials said on Monday. An official said that in the 4-day search operation, the SDRF and NDRF team have discovered the bodies of 6 people, although many people are still missing for which the team has intensified the operation.
It can be recalled that on September 14, a boat carrying 30 people capsized in the Bagmati river at Madhurpatti in Gaighat, Muzaffarpur, Bihar. On Monday, for the fifth day, hundreds of people from nearby areas thronged the the river bank as the team of SDRF and NDRF is carrying out the search operation. Boats are the only means of transportation for 500 families in the village.
Villagers say that to reach high school or Panchayat building, one has to travel a distance of about 8 kilometers by road. Ajit, a resident of this village of 500 families, while narrating the daily ordeal of the village, says that life of the villagers starts with a boat. “When the child grows in the womb, the mother also crosses the river by boat to reach the hospital,” he said.
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"Be it market or school, boat is the only way for the villagers to reach there. This is not the first time a boat accident has happened. Boat accidents happen every year," Shubham Paswan, another villager said. The villagers said that the local political leaders have been promising to provide the basic facilities to the villagers but to no avail.
“The leaders forget their promises after elections. For years the people of this area have been demanding the construction of a bridge. After every accident the administrative staff comes to the village, in every election the leaders also come to the village, everyone promises to build a bridge, and then forgets the promises,” Paswan said.
The main opposition party BJP has targeted the Nitish Kumar led Mahagathbandhan government over the accident. BJP state president Samrat Chaudhary said that “despite Nitish Kumar being the Chief Minister for 17 years, the situation is still such that children have to take the help of boats for education”. "What could be a bigger picture of misery than this? This situation is not only in Muzaffarpur, children of many villages of North Bihar have to go through this situation," Chaudhary said.
