JORABAT, Oct 11 - Just a few days after the people of Byrnihat celebrated the golden jubilee of the Durga Puja celebrations in their area, the news of their priest drowning in the nearby Umtru river has shocked the locality.
According to locals, the priest named Kamal Banerjee from Kolkata, who was called by the puja committee, had gone to the river to take a bath, but slipped and was carried away by the strong current of the river on Wednesday evening.
Sonapur and Byrnihat police with the help of the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) team launched a search operation the very next day, but failed to find him.
On Saturday, after spotting the body of the priest floating in the river, police recovered the body with the help of locals and sent it for post-mortem.
Meanwhile, the body of a man, believed to be in his late 40s, was recovered by Jorabat police from a drain on Friday.
According to locals, the man was supposedly mentally unstable and was found roaming on the streets since the last few days and mostly stayed near the drain.
Police have sent the body to Gauhati Medical College and Hospital for post-mortem and it will be kept for the next three days for identification purposes.
