CUTTACK: While tending to plants in the Jobra park at Cuttack, Babuli Behera keeps a close watch on the Mahanadi barrage. His vigilant eyes do not miss any suspicious movement or act. When he notices a person jumping into the river, he just dives and there’s not a single time that he has come out of the river without saving a life.
The 55-year-old garden supervisor of Cuttack Municipal Corporation has so far foiled over 50 such attempts. Belonging to the local fishermen community, he dropped out of school in Class VII to assist his parents in fishing. With their help, he learnt how to swim and navigate strong currents.
“There was no concrete barrage over Mahanadi then. There was a wooden barrage a few metres above the present barrage. I had mastered the trick of taking the perfect dive into Mahanadi from the wooden barrage,” he recalled.
At the age of 15, Behera saw a woman jumping from the barrage while he was fishing in the river. “I was throwing my net into the river when I saw a woman jumping into the Mahanadi. Fortunately, before she was swept away in the strong water current, I could get a hold of her and took her to the river bank,” he said.
Behera earned the appreciation of many who were standing on the river bank and since then, there has been no looking back. Of the people he has saved so far, Behera said at least 15 would have been students while the rest were women. “When we ask them why they want to end their lives, the students would blame it on exam failure. The women mostly jumped into the river due to failed affairs, marriages or domestic violence,” said Behera who keeps a rubber tube and a plastic rope handy. He has bought them with his savings.
He credits his wife Tukuni in assisting him in saving people from drowning. The couple has many times taken the survivors to hospitals and attended to them till their families arrived. Back in 2018, their son Chandan had also helped save many lives when a passenger bus skidded off the barrage and fell into the river.
Behera’s last rescue was in the month of July when he saved an elderly woman who jumped into river Mahanadi from Jobra barrage. He fractured his left leg in the process. Prior to that, he had saved a girl from the same spot in the river.
The brave man was recently felicitated by Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi and Deputy Chief Minister Pravati Parida for his efforts in saving people’s lives.