One person died and ten others reportedly went missing when a passenger trawler capsized in the river Shitalakhya at Kaliganj upazila in Gazipur district on Tuesday.
The victim was identified as Mohammad Limon Mia, 23, son of Kajol Mia, a resident of Sadukha village under Bahadur Shadi union. He was an operator of Pran Food and Beverage Co Ltd. Members of the rescue team recovered the body at around 11:40am.
Officials said the Ghorashal bound trawler left Kaliganj-Jamalpur ferry ghat at about 6:30 am carrying 50 to 60 passengers, mostly workers of Pran Group. Being informed, a special team of divers of Fire Service and Civil Defence [FSCD] from Narayanganj rushed to the spot and conducted a rescue operation. The divers recovered the body of Limon from deep water and handed over it to the local administration. “A body was recovered from the river. We did not get any information about any passenger missing in the incident,” said Kaliganj police station Officer-in-Charge Nazmul Hassan Bhuiyan. The OC said the reason behind the capsize might be overloading of passengers.
Our Narsingdi Correspondent, quoting some survivors, confirmed the incident and said there were more than 50 passengers on board the capsized trawler. Some of the passengers jumped into the river and managed to reach the riverbank by swimming.
Assistant Commissioner [Land] of Kaliganj Bhaskor Devnath told our correspondent that the Pran Group claimed that seven of their workers were missing. On January 27, another trawler ‘Shathil-1’, carrying more than 100 passengers sank after being hit by a Dhaka-bound boat, ‘Anchol-2’ in Patuakhali.
