Two more children drowned in the river Padma near the Railbazar Kheyaghat area of the Godagari Municipality in Godagari Upazila on Sunday around 10:30 am. This incident adds to a grim toll, with at least 20 adolescents and children losing their lives to drowning in water across Rajshahi district since April 1st.
The dead body of one child was recovered by local people around 3:00 pm, while the other drowned child remained still missing. Fire service personnel and divers have started a massive search in the water of the river to find the other missing child.
The recovered dead child was identified as Usman Ali (13), son of Omar Ali, in Sagarpara village under Godagari upazila, while the other missing child is Sultan Muhammad Saif (15), son of Nasir Uddin of the same village. Both the children were students of Al Islah Islamic Academy of Mohishalbari under Godagari upazila.
Local people informed me that five students of Al Islah Islamic Academy went to take a bath in the river Padma in the Railbazar Kheyaghat area. Two of those students drowned in the water. Failing to trace missing two students, other three students started weeping when local people rushed to the spot, and by searching in the water, they recovered the dead body of Usman Ali around 3 p.m. To trace the missing Saif, three divers from the Fire Service and Civil Defence Department of Rajshahi started to search the riverbed at 1 p.m.
Abdul Matin, officer-in-charge of Godagari Police Station, informed me that those two children went missing while taking a bath in the river Padma. The dead body of one of the missing children was recovered, while the other remained missing.
Abdur Razzak, Leader of the Divers Unit of Fire Service and Civil Defence, Rajshahi, informed us that the search for the missing child will continue till the evening of Sunday. If not found, the divers will again start searching for the body of the child on Monday morning.
Meanwhile, two more children died by drowning in a pond at Kharta village under Mohanpur upazila in Rajshahi on Saturday morning.
The drowned children were identified as Rajab Ali (5), son of Rubel Hossain of Kharta village, and his cousin Keya Khatun (5), daughter of Mukul of Lalpur under Natore district. Keya went to visit her aunt's house with her parents.
Haridas Mondal, officer-in-charge of Mohanpur Police Station, informed me that both Rajab and Keya were playing beside the pond belonging to Bacchu Hossain of the village in the morning. At some point, both of them fell and drowned in the water of the pond.Finding both the children nowhere, relatives and people of the village went beside the pond and saw the bodies of both children floating on the water of the pond. After recovering both bodies, local people took them to Mohanpur Health Complex, where the attending doctors declared them dead.
An unnatural death case was filed with the police station in this connection, and the dead bodies of both children were handed over to their family members.
It is learned that from April 1 to 28, at least 20 adolescent youths and children died by drowning in the rivers and ponds of the district, mostly while taking a bath to get relief from the extreme heat that is continuing throughout the district for about a month.
