Mohan Kuthar
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru

Mangaluru, Jul 29: A person went missing after a boat carrying sand capsized in Netravati river at Kadavinabali at Pavoor here on Wednesday July 29.

Luqman (21), a resident of Rajagudde, Harekala, went missing while Tanzil and Badruddin were rescued by an alert auto driver and Azeez and Salim swam ashore. Among them, Tanzil and Badruddin have been admitted to hospital.

Luqman

Azeez and Salim

It is learnt that the five had gone by boat to the middle of the river near Adyar to extract sand. When they were returning with the boat filled with sand, heavy winds started to blow and the boat capsized.

Iqbal, an auto driver who was nearby, swung into action and took a boat to the spot in the river where the others had fallen. He managed to rescue Tanzil and Badruddin and brought them safely ashore. Salim and Azeez swam to safety while Luqman went missing.

All the five who went for sand extraction belong to the same family. Tanzil, Azeez and Badruddin are brothers while Salim is their brother-in-law and Luqman their nephew.

From the past seven years, the entire family has been engaged in the work of fetching sand from the river in a boat belonging to one Asif of Mangaluru.

As the spot where the incident took place falls under both Konaje and Mangaluru rural police stations, personnel of both the stations arrived along with the fire personnel and started to search for Luqman, but were unable to trace him till evening.