Six people died in the accident, and another three are feared dead. The bridge the boat crashed into has been ‘under construction’ since 2017.
Srinagar: A man and two minors, one of them his son, are feared dead while the bodies of six others were retrieved after a boat crashed into a bridge over Jhelum river in Srinagar city on Tuesday, April 16.
The tragic incident sparked a political row in Kashmir with the People’s Democratic Party targeting the administration for delaying the completion of the bridge, which has been undergoing construction for the last seven years, while the National Conference demanded an inquiry into the incident.
Witnesses and officials said that a group of young children were among the victims who took the wooden boat, a rope ferry, to cross the Jhelum river in Srinagar at around 8:30 am on Tuesday. The children were on their way to a school in the Gandbal area.
“In the middle of the river, the ferry’s rope came off and it drifted uncontrollably towards the girdle of an under-construction bridge due to heavy flow of water and split into two,” a senior official in Srinagar district administration said, adding that the ferry sank instantly and all the passengers were washed away.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.