Sivasagar: After four days of search operations, a team of navy divers, army, National Disaster Response Force, State Disaster Response Force personnel and locals on Wednesday recovered the five bodies along with the car in which they were travelling in that plunged into the Dikhow river at Dikhowmukh in Upper Assam's Sivasagar district on Saturday.
The bodies are of Haren Borah, 52, his wife Phunu, 45, mother Punou, 85, and his daughters Dikshita, 21, and Nikshita, 18.
After detection of the vehicle near Dicial village, about 300 metres from the accident site, divers pulled up the car and found the five bodies.
"Except Haren's mother, who was in the passenger seat in the front, all the other bodies were found clasped together in the back seat," an eyewitness said.
"We got a pungent smell about 300m from the accident site and spotted the car. A 10kg magnet, attached to a rope, was dropped into the river to pull up the vehicle. Divers then tied ropes to the submerged car and pulled it out of the water," an SDRF member said.
Narendra Dahiya, team leader of the navy divers, said a strong undercurrent led to some difficulties during the search operations. "The current at the surface was around seven nautical miles per hour but the current underwater was as high as 13 nautical miles. The car should have been carried several kilometres but it got stuck to a boulder in the riverbed," he said.
Sivasagar deputy commissioner Pallav Gopal Jha thanked the rescue teams for their efforts. "All the team members gave their best," he said. Jha took the initiative to involve SDRF and NDRF teams in the rescue operations. Besides the teams stationed in Sivasagar, he called in those stationed at Dibrugarh, Jorhat and Golaghat.
The district administration also contacted chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Sunday for additional teams. Sonowal then spoke to the Prime Minister's Office and the home ministry. He also took up the matter with the National Disaster Management Authority and the defence ministry for help from the navy.
On Monday, a special forces unit from Dimapur, under the army's Spear Corps, was pressed into service. The same day, a 10-member diving team from the Eastern Naval Command was airlifted from Visakhapatnam, who joined the rescue operations on Tuesday with advanced equipment like side-scan sonar.
After the news about the recovery of bodies spread, residents of Mitong Nakatani village gathered at the ancestral home of Haren and started preparations for the last rites. The narrow passage to the house, near the Gaurisagar-Dikowmukh road, was cleaned up by locals.
The post-mortem was conducted at Sivasagar civil hospital after which the bodies were sent to Mitong Nakatani to conduct the last rites.
Relatives and neighbours were inconsolable after they witnessed the bodies, wrapped in polythene sheets. Thousands of mourners lined up outside the house.
"The last rites were conducted on a plot of land owned by the family near the Dikhow," said Bhola Nath Borah, Haren's cousin.
A relative said Haren used to visit his ancestral house quite often. "Despite living in Guwahati, he was in touch with his family in the village and used to come here regularly. He was a very amiable person and loved by all. Whenever he came here, he visited each and every house in the neighbourhood," the relative said.
The University of Science and Technology, Meghalaya, on Wednesday announced that a lecture hall will be named after Dikshita, who was an MCA student at the institute.
The university on Tuesday organised an all-faith prayer meet on its campus on the outskirts of Guwahati.
