DEHRADUN: Two senior employees of a Noida-based BPO centre are feared dead after they were washed away by the Ganga in Rishikesh on Sunday.
Rahul Singh, 33, was the centre head of Adroit Synergies Private Limited in Noida. Bhanu Murti, also 33, was a manager there. They, along with seven others, were on a weekend trip to Rishikesh. “The group reached Rishikesh on Sunday morning and checked into a hotel at Tapovan. They were walking towards the main city when the accident occurred near Ram Jhula,” said inspector Kamal Mohan Singh Bhandari, in charge of the Muni Ki Reti police station.
“Rahul entered the river to wash his hands. He lost his balance, slipped and fell into the river. As he was washed away, Bhanu jumped in to rescue him. He, too, was swept away by the strong current,” Sunil Kumar, their colleague who was also on the trip with them, told TOI. “Neither knew how to swim.”
Rahul was from Bulandshahr and had been living in Noida with his wife and two children. Bhanu was from Delhi.
The group members reached the police station and reported the case. A team of State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) was dispatched with motor rafts to look for the missing people. “The search operation was on till Sunday evening,” an SDRF official said. “The water level of the Ganga has been near the danger mark with strong currents because of the rainy season, making it very dangerous for anyone to venture into the water.”
Last month, three students from Mumbai had drowned while bathing in the Ganga at Haridwar — one of them waded deep into the water and slipped, the two others swam towards her to help her and all of them died.
