Mayor Firhad Hakim on Monday evening went to meet the family of Pushan Sadhukhan, one of the two rowers who drowned in the Rabindra Sarobar, and said police and the KMDA had been asked to call a meeting to find a way to check life-saving measures at the lake.
“Today I have come to offer the condolences of the chief minister. It is an irreparable loss and an extremely unfortunate incident. We were very surprised that there was no rescue boat in the lake. A rescue boat might have saved the boys,” Hakim said on Jheel Road in Dhakuria, where Pushan lived.
Around the same time, power minister Aroop Biswas visited the house of Souradeep Chatterjee, the other victim.
“I have come as a representative of the chief minister…. This is really very unfortunate,” Biswas said after stepping out of Souradeep’s Raja Basanta Roy Road home.
Sources close to the family said Biswas and Trinamul MLA Debasish Kumar discussed the possibility of forming a committee to look into the safety of rowers. “They were talking among themselves about the possibility of forming a committee to look into this. But there was no word of confirmation,” a family friend said.
The police said that in the absence of any complaint from the victims’ families, they have not been able to start any case.
Friends of Pushan and Souradeep, both of whom were students of South Point High School, said they had enrolled for a tug of war that was scheduled for Saturday afternoon, around the same time the boys went for rowing practice.
Pushan, Souradeep and two others, who shared the rowing boat with the victims but survived the storm, withdrew their names from the tug of war so they could practice for the finals of a rowing tournament.
“We had enrolled for the tug of war. But at the last moment, Souradeep said it would be too risky to participate in the tug of war as there were chances of injuries. So, we withdrew our names and decided to focus on rowing,” said Sanskar Chandra, one of the two boys who survived the tragedy.
