BHOPAL: A car carrying a police station in-charge, a sub-inspector and a woman constable was swept away by the swollen Kshipra river in Madhya Pradesh's Ujjain district after falling off of a bridge.
While the body of the police station in-charge Ashok Sharma was retrieved from the river on Sunday morning, the two other cops are still missing the river, even as the search operations by the NDRF and SDERF teams have gained momentum.
The mishap happened at around 8 pm, when the three police personnel posted at Unhel police station of Ujjain district, including in-charge Ashok Sharma, sub inspector Madanlal Ninama, and constable Arti Pal, were on way from Ujjain city to Chintaman in connection with the ongoing investigations into the missing of a 14-year-old girl.
“The car, boarded by the three cops, was possibly being driven by the woman constable Arti Pal and suddenly became disbalanced, before plunging into the river from the Bada Pul (bridge),” Ujjain district police superintendent Pradeep Sharma said on Sunday.
Besides, constable Arti Pal and the police station in-charge Ashok Sharma, sub inspector Madanlal Ninama were also boarding the car, which swept in the flooded river after falling from the railing-less bridge.
Coming to know about the mishap, all senior officials, including SP-Ujjain Pradeep Sharma, municipal commissioner Abhilash Mishra and additional municipal commissioner Santosh Tagore rushed to the spot and the rescue operations started at around 8.30 pm.
“In the beginning we didn’t know who was boarding the white colour car. It was around three hours later that the Unhel police station in-charge’s family, which lives in Ujjain city, informed about being unable to communicate with Sharma and two other cops. After that it became clear that the car which plunged into the river, was actually boarded by the three police personnel,” an official present at the spot told TNIE.
The NDRF and SDERF teams, which used boats and drone cameras to carry out the rescue and search operations in the night, stopped the operation at around 1.30 am and resumed it at 7 am on Sunday.
It was at around 8 am that the body of the police station in-charge Ashok Sharma was recovered from the river, around 4 km from the spot where the mishap had happened on Saturday night.
While the SP-Ujjain has confirmed that only the police station in-charge’s body has so far been found, unconfirmed reports suggest that sub inspector Madanlal Ninama’s body too has been found at around 12 noon near Suliyakhedi village – which is around 12 km from the spot of the mishap.
