Rescuers search in the Yamuna River after a country boat, seen in foreground, capsized near Baghpat town in Uttar Pradesh on Thursday. At least 25 people, mostly construction labourers, were killed in the mishap.
Twenty-five people, mostly labourers, were drowned, when the boat carrying them capsized in Yamuna river in Uttar Pradesh's Baghpat district, about 450 kilometres from here, on Thursday.
The death toll could go up as around a dozen people were still missing, police sources said here. Rescue operations were still continuing.
Irked over alleged delay in launching the rescue operations, a mob of locals later torched several vehicles and indulged in heavy stone pelting and blocked the national highway connecting Baghpat to Delhi. Several officials sustained injuries in the stone pelting.
The locals alleged that the police reached the spot two hours after being informed. Many of the victims could have been rescued had the police reached there on time, they alleged.
Sources said that the mishap occurred in the morning when the overcrowded boat tilted to one side midway and capsized in the swollen river. Around a dozen people were able to swim to safety, sources said.
Police officials, who reached the spot after receiving the information, said that the victims mostly included labourers, who crossed the river every morning to go to Haryana for work in the fields.
The officials said that the boat had a capacity of 20 people but there were more than 60 people on it.
Divers have been pressed into service to trace the missing people, sources said adding that 25 bodies have so far been fished out of the river.
Around a dozen people were missing, the officials said. Ten others, who were rescued, were admitted to the district hospital, where the condition of four of them was said to be critical.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath has announced an exgratia relief of Rs. two lakh to the next of the kin of the deceased.