Day 9: Search Ops on to trace out Sopore teenager

Sopore, Dec 20: The attempts to trace out the body of a teenage girl who jumped in the River Jhelum at Jamia bridge in North Kashmir’s Sopore town continued on ninth straight day on Tuesday while as the deputy commissioner Baramulla Dr Sehrish Asghar visited the family of the teenage girl late this evening after facing multiple public taunts.
Local fishermen community, who have been tracing the girl from day one, said that the search to fish out the body was on and that there was no success.
Navigating the whole operation they said that dozens of divers including a team of State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), Wular Conservation and Management Authority (WUCMA), local fishermen, Navy and Sopore police were continuously putting their efforts to retrieve the body of the missing teenage girl.
“We had pressed at least 150 men, 80 boats into the service to retrieve the body of a 17-year-old girl from the day first, but the efforts failed and we have decided to call off the search operation”, said Farooq Ahmed, who heads the fishermen community.
He said, that not only of Sopore, but the fishermen from Bandipora and adjoining villages too joined us in the search operations. Farooq said that whatever they were using was of their own and nothing from the administration side.
Meanwhile, the deputy commissioner Baramulla, Dr Syed Sehrish Asgar during the late evening hours visited the family of the girl and expressed condolences to the family.
She, however, refused to talk to media persons at the spot.
Earlier, locals were expressing their anger against the administration – local as well as district for failing to felicitate the search operation team. “Deputy Commissioner Baramulla and local Municipality head didn’t visit the spot, it’s very shameful and unfortunate on their part”, locals earlier in the day said.
“We saw the SDRF team for just 2 or 3 days and Marcos of the Indian Navy for a day hardly. It was the local fishermen community only who were putting their hectic efforts to trace out the girl”, they added.
They, however, said that there should have a SDRF team situated in Sopore township also to act swiftly soon after such incidents occur in the vicinity. It is seen from the past that a number of such incidents were reported from the town at different spots, be it Jamia Bridge, Chankhan or Bypass one.
“The timely action of SDRF would save the lives of drowned ones”, they said.
Locals also have appealed to the administration to fence the bridges in order to stop the practice of jumping in the river Jhelum.