Bijay Sapkota, 22, of Chaumala Rajipur and Sarpa Rimal, 48, of Sungarkhal VDC are missing after the boat capsized in the Karnali River on Tuesday afternoon.Another local of Rajipur Bhim Saud, one of three persons in the boat, swum to safety, Durga Baduwal, a local, informed.
According to the locals, they are searching for the missing people.
Sapkota, one of the missing, was a Surkhet businessman. On Holi festival on Tuesday, his father and relatives at Sungarkhal in Kailali had called him.
"On the way to Sungarkhal in Kailali from Betan of Surkhet, the boat had capsized in the Karnali River," Baduwal said. According to him, locals and security personnel from Nepal Army and Nepal Police have been carrying out joint search and rescue for the missing.
Meanwhile, DSP Birendra Shrestha, who is also the chief of District Police Office (DPO), Surkhet, informed that the DPO received the information about the boat accident only on Wednesday afternoon. "Before we got the information, Nepal Army and Nepal Police personnel from Kailai had already reached the scene and started search and rescue operation," he said. He also added that police personnel from Bichaura police station, which is closer to the incident site, have also been mobilized for the operation.
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