HT Bureau
DEMOW/SIVASAGAR, Feb 15: Sensation prevails in and around the larger Demow area here following the recovery of two bodies from the Rajabari pukhuri (pond) near NH-37 at Demow Rajabari in Sivasagar District on Wednesday.
The deceased have been identified as Sanjay Singh Rajput (23) — a resident of the Rajabari Tea Estate — and Naspati Ghatowar (36), a resident of Japihajia Sumani Gaon.
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According to sources, local residents saw some clothes and sandals near the pond on Wednesday morning. The local people immediately informed the Demow Police. Then, a team of Demow Police accompanied by the local magistrate and a team of SDRF personnel reached the spot and started a search operation in the watery body. After some time, the search team recovered the two bodies from the Rajabari Pukhuri. Both the bodies were sent for post mortem to the Joysagar Civil Hospital situated in Sivasagar.
The National Highway Authority has not yet filled the pond with earth for four-lanning expansion work.
Incidentally, it is in this very pond where 62 passengers lost their lives on November 11, 1994, when the driver of the bus they were travelling in drove straight into the deep pond by the side of the NH-37. Sources informed that he did it in a treacherous bid to sneak away nearly Rs 3 lakh of lottery money concealed in the box behind his seat when the passengers would be fumbling for an escape route out of the bus in supposedly knee-deep water in the winter. But he had no idea that the pond is more than 30 feet deep.
