Teesta search for Jawans still futile

Daylong search operations along the Teesta today proved futile as none of the missing jawans could be traced.

A Sevoke-bound army truck carrying jawans skidded off NH 31 and fell into the Teesta between Sevoke Coronation Bridge and Mongpong, about 30 km from Siliguri, yesterday morning.

Five bodies were recovered from the river during the rescue operations yesterday. Six injured jawans had also been rescued. Police sources had said there were 18 people in the truck, but army officials today put the figure at 16.

All the army personnel in the truck were from the Sixth Maratha Regiment. The four bodies recovered late in the evening yesterday were identified as those of Sanjoy Nel, Amol Solanki, Baba Saheb Lalwa and Buket Pawar, all constables in the regiment, said Uday Tamang, the officer-in-charge of the Rambhi police outpost.

“We found the bodies about three to four kilometres downstream from the accident site,” said an army official monitoring the search operations.

This morning, an eight-member team of army divers from Jorhat in Assam started the search operations with members of the Teesta Bazaar-based Action Adventure and Rescue Group. Two rafts and a speedboat were pressed into service.

“We tried to retrieve the truck that had drowned, but it would not budge,” said Sukhbir Tamang, a member of the rescue team. “None of the missing men could be traced.”

The missing army personnel have been identified as S. Desai, Mithun, Deepak Nikam, Shailshankar and Ram Bahadur Thapa.

Residents and daily commuters of Bagrakote, Sevoke and Malbazar blamed the bad condition of the roads for the accident.

Source: The Telegraph

Protest against hydel power project on Lepcha reserve

Gangtok, Sikkim: General secretary of Affected Citizens of Teesta (ACT) Dawa T. Lepcha, who has been on hunger strike for the past 23 days, was shifted to hospital this morning after his pressure dropped drastically.

Lepcha, who is also a documentary film-maker, has been admitted to Sir Thutob Namgyal Memorial Hospital. Twenty-year-old Tenzing Gyatso Lepcha, an ACT member, was admitted to the same hospital five days ago with high fever and low pressure. Both the activists said they would continue fasting at the hospital. Thirteen other ACT members are fasting at B.L. House on Sonam Gyatso Marg here.

The ACT members are on hunger strike to demand the immediate scrapping of all the mega hydel power projects in the Lepcha reserve of Dzongu in North Sikkim.

A saline channel attached to his right hand, Tenzing, told that he was not willing to give up so soon. “I have already come this far and I think there is no stopping until a positive decision is reached. I am ready to give up my life in the course of this protest,” said Tenzing who has recently taken his final-year examinations at Sikkim Government College.

The ACT members today thanked the Rong Ong Prongzom (Lepcha Youth Organisation) for organising the recent roadblock in Kalimpong. They described the act of solidarity by the indigenous people of the Darjeeling hills as a historic event. “It is unfortunate to term the peaceful expression of dissent by the aborigines of the hills as unlawful,” said Tseten Lepcha, the chief coordinator of ACT.

The statement is in reply to the Sikkim government’s release on Wednesday, condemning the roadblock. The government, had in a communiqué yesterday, said it had taken serious note of rumours being spread by vested interest groups on the so-called threat posed to Dzongu and other project sites.

“The state government reiterates that all developmental projects being undertaken in the state are as per the procedure prescribed by law which provided for public hearing of the projects at its site. In fact the whole process has been a detailed and lengthy procedure addressing the concerns for environment and tradition,” the release read.

There was, however, no new proposal for the protesters from the government today.

Source: The Telegraph

Mishap at Teesta Low Dam Project

Kalijhora : One person died and three others were seriously injured when an NHPC dumper crashed into a security checkpoint at the entrance of the Teesta Low Dam Project (Stage IV) and fell about 30 feet to end up on the Kali riverbed here this afternoon.

The dead has been identified as Bikash Gurung, an employee of Gorkha Security Service, a private security agency engaged by the power major at the project site. The spot is located on the confluence of the Teesta river and the Kali rivulet, about 40km from Kalimpong and 25km from Siliguri.

Another security guard, Bikash Tamang, and the driver and helper of the dumper, whose identities are yet to be established, are among the injured. All three have been admitted to a hospital in Siliguri.

Eyewitnesses said the dumper was entering the project site when the driver lost control of the heavy-duty vehicle and crashed into the checkpoint, before nose-diving 30 feet to land on the Kali. Both Gurung and Tamang were inside the checkpost and had no chance of getting out as the dumper took the tinned structure down with it.

“Till Thursday I was the one doing duty at the checkpoint. I can only thank my stars that I was posted in another area today, or I could have been the victim,” said Jiten Thapa, Gurung’s colleague.

Forty minutes after the incident, which occurred around 4.20pm, Thapa still seemed to be in a state of shock.

“Bikash (Gurung) was from Mungpoo, and was very good to me,” he mumbled.

The NHPC has engaged a number of dumpers like the one that was involved in the accident today at its project site. “The dumpers carry mud from the site to the dumping yard (across the Kali bridge),” said Sanjay Ghosh, personnel manager of Teesta Low Dam Project (Stage IV).

Source: The Telegraph

Sikkim bound taxi accident toll goes up

Two of the three persons gone missing after yesterday’s accident on NH 31A at Likhubir have been traced, one dead and the other alive.

A Mahindra Maxx travelling from Siliguri to Gangtok with 11 people had plunged into the Teesta yesterday afternoon. Apart from those missing, two persons were confirmed dead and six were admitted to Siliguri hospitals with injuries.

The body of Ramesh Acharya was found today floating in the Teesta near Reang, said Kalimpong police. Acharya’s mother P. Varghavi Amma had also died in the accident.

Another missing man, unidentified till this morning, has been traced to Gangtok, alive. Inspector in charge of Kalimpong police station Puran Subba said Shiva Subba was apparently not seriously injured in the accident and had been helped on to a Gangtok-bound car by residents of the area. He is recuperating from head injuries at Sir Thutob Namgyal Memorial Hospital in Gangtok, said a source there.

Mehul Desai, the ICICI bank employee from Calcutta, is still missing. His wife Mridula is under treatment in Siliguri.

Mamata Magar, who was reportedly accompanying Amma, was released from North Bengal Medical College and Hospital today and went back to Rumtek in Sikkim. The relatives of Kheti and Bhawesh Narsana have arrived from Calcutta. The couple, it has been learnt, lives in Bhowanipur.

The Narsanas and the other survivors owe their lives to rafters from Chitre and Malli, located close to Likhubir. These rafters are the unsung heroes of numerous rescue missions on the Teesta, which runs along NH 31A connecting Siliguri to Gangtok.

A team of rafters from these areas had reached the spot to look for survivors, minutes after yesterday’s mishap. Today, they were back in the river, looking for the missing persons.

“Whenever we hear about accidents near the river, we act on our own. We know that a quick response can save lives,” said Sukhbir Tamang, owner of Action Adventure and Rescue Group, a Malli-based rafting unit.

The rescuers had played an important role in the aftermath of the collapse of a Bailey bridge at an NHPC project site at Reang in 2005. They again came to the power major’s aid a few months ago by retrieving the body of one of its officials who died after his jeep fell into the river near Swetijhora.

Tamang added that they “can always do with some assistance from the police and civil administration”. “At times, the police lend us vehicles to ferry our rafts and food to the spot, but that’s about it,” he said.

Kalimpong additional superintendent of police Humayun Kabir said his force shares a “very good relationship” with the rafting units. However, he was tight-lipped about providing further assistance to the rescuers.

Drivers plying on NH 31A said the the government agencies should ensure that the rafters have access to better equipment.

Source: The Telegraph

Sikkim tourist taxi falls into Teesta River

Two persons were killed and three went missing when a jeep travelling from Siliguri to Gangtok hurtled into the Teesta after being hit by a falling boulder at Likhubir on NH 31A.

Six persons were injured in the accident.

The 11 people travelling in the jeep included at least one couple from Calcutta (husband missing, wife injured).

Police said the Mahindra Maxx swerved out of the road and fell into the river 50ft below around 12.30pm after a loose boulder from the mountainside fell on the roof of the vehicle. The stretch of the highway at Likhubir, located around 45km from Siliguri and a landslide-prone zone, has no parapet.

Owners and workers of rafting units located in the nearby areas of Chitre and Malli helped rescue the injured.

The vehicle, too, was later hauled out of the river with the help of a crane.

Kalimpong additional superintendent of police Humayun Kabir said the dead have been identified as Anil Subba (32), the driver of the jeep from Bortuk, Sikkim, and P. Varghavi Amma (50), a retired schoolteacher of south Indian origin from Rumtek in Sikkim. Varghavi’s son, Ramesh Acharya, is among the three missing, added Kabir. The other two are Mehul Desai (32), an employee of the Salt Lake branch of ICICI Bank in Calcutta, and an unidentified person.

Mehul’s wife Mridula (26) has been admitted to Anandalok Nursing Home in Siliguri with a leg injury. Her condition is stable, said a doctor there. The Desais were planning to celebrate their marriage anniversary tomorrow by taking a trip to the hills.

Originally from Ahmedabad, Gujarat, Mehul and Mridula had arrived in Calcutta six months ago and were living as tenants on the first floor of a multi-storeyed building at 126 Barada Avenue in Garia. Moushumi Mukherjee, who lives in the same building with her husband Sudip, received a call from Mridula around 1pm today to be told about the accident. Moushumi and Sudip will go to Siliguri by flight tomorrow to help Mridula locate Mehul.

The injured also include Mamata Magar (29) from Rumtek who was accompanying Varghavi, Suman Kumar Saha (23), a resident of Nehru Avenue, C Zone, Durgapur, and Jiban Modak (27) a carpenter from 2 Number Colony in Siliguri Junction. All three have critical head injuries, said doctors at North Medical College and Hospital, where they are undergoing treatment.

Another couple, Bhavesh and Kheti Narsana, is also being treated at Anandalok for head injuries. Krishna Ghosh, a medical dealer from Siliguri, said he had got a call from a customer in Calcutta who said he was a relative of the Narsanas and asked Ghosh to take care of them. Ghosh added that he did not know where the couple was from.

Source: The Telegraph

Lepchas to clean Teesta river

Kalimpong: A cleaner Teesta river may soon be on view, thanks to a group of nature worshippers.

Rong Ong Prongzom, a Lepcha youth organisation, plans to conduct a clean-up drive on the Teesta river banks at Triveni and Reang on Sunday. It will be part of the preparations for Tendong Lho Rum Faat, the annual Lepcha puja of Thedong Hill near Namchi, Sikkim, held on August 8.

Triveni, the confluence of the Teesta and Rangeet rivers located 16 km from here, is a favourite spot for picnickers. Reang at 27 Mile on NH 31A, on the other hand, is where the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation is currently executing Stage III of the Teesta Low Dam Project.

“Both places are heavily littered, which is why we want to clean them, especially since the Teesta is our holy river,” said Azuk Tamsangmoo, an adviser to the youth organisation and coordinator of Pum Sezom, the apex body of the community.

The nature-worshipping Lepchas are the original inhabitants of Sikkim and the Darjeeling hills. According to figures available with the Indigenous Lepcha Tribal Association, there are about 40,000 of them in the Kalimpong subdivision and another 35,000 or so in Sikkim.

“No Lepcha marriage is solemnised without invoking the name of the Teesta. We won’t be able to do so anymore if we continue to destroy the river as we have been doing till now,” said the coordinator.

Apart from cleaning the riverbed, the youth organisation will also conduct an awareness campaign against the desecration and destruction of the Teesta. “We will put up signboards near the river, urging people not to litter the place,” said Tamsangmoo.

Source: The Telegraph