From Our Correspondent
Guwahati: The District Magistrate and Superintendent of Police (SP) of Dhubri district in Assam and senior Border Security Force (BSF) personnel on Turdsday held a meeting with their counterparts from Kurigram district of Bangladesh and Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB) at Sonahat border outpost of the BSF.
The emergency meeting of Tuesday was held to seek help from Bangladesh agencies and administration who were involved in searching for those who had gone missing after Monday evening’s motorboat tragedy on Brahmaputra River at Medortari in Dhubri district.
Over 200 persons have remained untraced after the tragic incident.
Nine more bodies were recovered since last night till this afternoon while the search operation is being continued by the teams of BSF and NDRF.
With the latest recovery of the number of bodies received by the administration had gone up to 32 even as confusion continues over the actual number of bodies being retrieved so far with locals claiming recovery of much more number of bodies.
A senior BSF official informed that the meeting which was held during 11-40 A.M to 12-10 P.M. on Thursday, focused efforts being made by both the sides to search for commuters in the ill-fated boat still remaining lost in the bosom of the Mighty Brahmaputra.
The boat tragedy had occurred within ten kilometers inside the Indian territory from the border with Bangladesh.
A Border Security Force source had informed that the officials from Bangladesh did not inform about any recovery of bodies on their side so far, but said that search operations has been launched by them with many personnel involved in the search operation on Brahmaputra River at Dahikhowa and Yatrapur areas of Kurigram district on Bangladesh.
The District Magistrate of Dhubri requested his counterpart from Kurigram district to handover bodies, if recovered, to Dhubri without conducting the post-mortem and Bangladesh officials agreed to it.
The meeting was attended by Dhubri district magistrate Kumud Kalita, Superintendent of Police Pradip Saloi, BSF DIG of Dhubri Sector, Mohanlal and two local commanding officers of the BSF from the Indian side.
The Bangladesh side was represented by the District Magistrate and the Superintendent of Police of Kurigram district and the Commanding Officer of 45 Border Guards Bangladesh.
Assam government has instructed its Inland Water Transport department of Assam to mount vigil against overloaded motor boats plying in rivers across the state which has been a routine phenomenon due to lack of vigilance on part of the administration on leasees running ferry services in the entire state of Assam.