Three men drown in Ganges as boat capsizes near Barrackpore

Three persons drowned on Saturday after a group of six locals took a country boat "forcefully" and rowed straight into the stream without a boatman in the Hooghly River of West Bengal. Three persons successfully swam safely to the bank.

Barrackpore: Three persons drowned after a boat capsized in the Hooghly river in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district, police said on Sunday.

The incident occurred near Mangal Pandey Ghat here on Saturday evening.

According to Barrackpore Police Commissionerate Deputy Commissioner (Zone 1) Ajay Kumar Thakur, "A group of six locals took a country boat "forcefully" and rowed straight into the stream without a boatman.

Suddenly, their boat capsized, in which three of them swam safely to the bank while two are still missing,"

Meanwhile, the dead body of one of the drowned, whose name is Bipin Paswan has been recovered.

The other two persons are identified as Amit Balmiki and Kamal Ghosh, whose bodies are still missing.

Primary Police investigation has revealed that they were drunk as they were steering in mid-river.

Three more- Mohammed Jacki, Raju Das and Biswajit Bhowmick were also in the boat along with those who drowned.

However, they reached the shore somehow to save themselves and swam to the shores of Titagarh Wagon and Shipping Factory.

The factory workers then handed over all three to police thinking that they might be thieves.

On the other hand, the families of those who have drowned claimed that all the three left their home on Friday and did not return thereafter.

They also alleged that the three who escaped are behind this accident.

An FIR has been lodged and a probe is underway.