SAMBALPUR: Tapas Naik and his brother-in-law Pratap Patel of Kuchinda’s Gunduruchuan village left home on Saturday to invite friends and relatives to a feast to commemorate a family member’s death but little did they know the fate that awaited them.
The duo was returning home in the evening when their car was swept away while crossing a submerged culvert on an overflowing nullah at Naktipali within Jamankira police limits. The bodies of Tapas (52) and Pratap (53) were recovered from Baratengra Nullah at Naktipali on Sunday.
According to family members, both of them had gone to distribute invitation cards for the community feast scheduled to be held on August 26 following the death of Tapas’s uncle.
On the way back to their village, they found water flowing over the culvert on Baratengra Nullah. Instead of waiting for the water to recede, they tried to cross the flooded culvert misjudging the force of the flowing water. The current was too strong and their car was swept away in the gushing water.
Passersby and locals rushed to the spot and informed the fire service personnel about the incident. A rescue operation was launched but it had to be stopped due to darkness.
On Sunday morning, the car was spotted around 100 metres away from the culvert. The bodies of Tapas and Pratap were found inside the vehicle.
As the news of the incident spread, a pall of gloom descended on Kuchinda. Tapas was running a LIC investment consultancy in New Delhi and also into organic farming in his village.
Pratap worked as an engineer in Singapore and had come back to his village to stay with his parents after quitting his job around two months back.
Kuchinda IIC Subhankar Seth said Tapas was driving the car when the incident took place. Though locals had asked them to not cross the flooded nullah, they did not pay any heed to the warning. The bodies were handed over to family members after the autopsy, he added.