Five days after he went missing after falling into the Ganga, the search for a 31-year-old Madhya Pradesh man continued, with Chief Minister Mohan Yadav exhorting his counterpart iUttarakhand, Pushkar Singh Dhami, to expedite operations.
On October 16, around 10:10 pm, Hemant Soni, who hails from Madhya Pradesh and works in Delhi, and his two friends, Akshat Seth and Amit Soni, were at the Bajrang Setu or Bajrang bridge, an under-construction structure running parallel to the Laxman Jhula in Rishikesh. The three friends work in the IT industry in different companies in Delhi and were visiting Rishikesh for the first time.
“He was standing atop a raised structure with glass shards and accidentally fell into the river. The friends informed us, and at 10.19 pm, we reached the spot. The operation is challenging as the temperature of water has been dipping,” said an officer from the Laxman Jhula police station working at the spot.
The Pauri police and SDRF continue to search for the person and an FIR has been registered based on a missing person complaint. Police said that the SDRF has been involving people to help and rafts are being used to cover the stretch from Laxman Jhula bridge to the barrage.
Three separate teams have been formed at the police station level to search different parts of the river, and the operation is being carried out continuously.
The Bajrang bridge, which is being built parallel to the historic Lakshman Jhula, is still under construction, with work ongoing to install transparent glass plates on the floor. Police said that Soni could have stepped into an incomplete part of the bridge without realising.
Yadav tweeted that he has spoken to Dhami about the incident. “Hemant Soni, a young engineer from Prithvipur in Niwari district, has been missing for the past few days after falling into the Ganga river from an under-construction bridge in Rishikesh, Uttarakhand. Taking note of the information shared by MLA from Prithvipur, Nitendra Singh Rathore, and the family members, I spoke today over the phone with the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, Pushkar Singh Dhami, and personally requested him to intensify efforts to locate the young engineer Hemant,” he said.
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Earlier, Soni’s family had said they were not aware that he had gone for a trip. “He was working in Delhi and lived away from us…we hope that he will be found. We are waiting for the police to update us,” said Vinod Soni, the victim’s uncle.
