Silchar, July 06: Four Muslim men have been arrested in Assam’s Cachar district in connection with the breach of an embankment of the Barak River, which eventually led to a massive flood in Silchar city. It is alleged that it was done to intentionally drown parts of India.
Police have arrested 4 people in connection with the damaging of the Betukaandi embankment of Silchar. It needs to be mentioned that the breach of the embankment led to the severe flood in Silchar. The 4 vandals arrested are Kabul Khan, Mitu Lashkar, Major Laskar, and Ripon Lashkar.
Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma had ordered an investigation in this connection and directed the police to arrest the culprits involved in the embankment breach during his visit to Barak Valley last week on Friday.
CID team has reached Silchar and initiated an investigation further into the matter. 2 inspectors of CID are pursuing an investigation.
Cachar SP Ramandeep Kaur said that “The irrigation department has given us an FIR regarding the dike surrounding the town. The FIR stated that the dike was broken which resulted in the inflow of water to the town, and finally, the town was filled with water. Now it’s day 13. This was the initial complaint of the irrigation department. On conducting an investigation we resurfaced a video in which these people have confessed to doing the deed. Based on this, as of now, we have apprehended 4 people in this case, Kabul Khan, Mithu Sen Laskar, Naseer Hussain Laskar, and Ripam Khan. These are residents of Bethukandi and are currently in question. As per the first person that we caught, Kabul Khan there are more people involved in this, so looking at the scene this way we shall catch hold of everyone involved in this. The irrigation department filed a case with us on the 23rd of May. We went by procedure and investigated, after which the allegations did stand to be true. It was only after the inquiry that we registered the case. So after the complaint lodged on 23rd of May, the case was registered on the 21st of June.”
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Police investigation revealed that the devastating floods were not caused due to natural reasons but because of the involvement of anti-social elements which led to the huge damage to the Bethukandi dyke.
Khan had allegedly filmed a video of the breach, which the Chief Minister had shown to the local residents when he had visited the embankment site in the Cachar district.
He was seen asking the people to identify the voices in the video. Subsequently, Khan was identified. It has been learned that six persons were mainly responsible for the breaching of the embankment.
On May 24, the Water Resources Department filed a police complaint against unknown miscreants for breaking through the embankment at Bethukandi, some 3 kilometres from the town centre, to allow rainwater from a marsh to pour into the Barak River.
Later, in June, the river water entered following heavy torrential rain and engulfed Silchar, affecting more than 1 lakh people.
The flood situation in Assam continued to improve on Tuesday although four more people, including two children, lost their lives in the deluge and nearly 11.17 lakh people remained affected in 16 districts, an official bulletin said.
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According to the daily flood report issued by the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA), two people, including one child, drowned in the Cachar district, while one person lost his life in the Morigaon district during the day. One more child died due to the flood in the Nagaon district, the report stated.
With this, the total number of people losing their lives in this year’s floods and landslides in the state has gone up to 184. ASDMA said more than 11,16,800 people remained affected due to floods in Bajali, Barpeta, Biswanath, Cachar, Chirang, Darrang, Dibrugarh, Goalpara, Hailakandi, Kamrup, Kamrup Metropolitan, Karimganj, Morigaon, Nagaon, Sivasagar, and Tamulpur districts.
Cachar is the worst hit with nearly 6.32 lakh people suffering, followed by Nagaon (2.33 lakh) and Morigaon (1.65 lakh). Urban flooding has hit several places in the Dibrugarh district, the bulletin said.
Till Monday, nearly 14 lakh people were affected by the deluge across 21 districts in the state. At present, 1,024 villages are under water and 29,781.23 hectares of farmland have been damaged across Assam, ASDMA said.
