Baripada: The body of the ODRAF jawan Sitaram Murmu that had gone missing after drowning in Mahanadi at Mundali barrage on Friday afternoon, arrived at Muktajhari Sahi of his native village Dakeipala in Karanjia block in Mayurbhanj district on Sunday morning.
A pall of gloom descended on the village following the arrival of the body. The mortal remains of Murmu will be consigned to flames later in the day.
Notably, eight teams of the NDRF and three teams of ODRAF personnel had launched the search operation on Friday night and had spread out in the vicinity of Mundali Barrage and Naraj area of the river to trace Murmu. After hours of search, the ODRAF teams spotted the body at Mahalapada Gumei Sahi of Kakhadi panchayat in Athagarh block on Saturday afternoon.
The tragic incident took place on Saturday afternoon when five ODRAF personnel accompanied by the chief reporter of OTV, Arindam Das and cameraman Prabhat Sinha had gone on a mission in a powerboat to rescue a tusker that was stuck under the Mundali barrage.
However, while trying to push the tusker to the river bank, the powerboat overturned. While four ODRAF jawans and the cameraman were rescued by the ODRAF jawans through a rope ladder, Arindam and Sitaram drowned.
While the body of Arindam was recovered from the river a few hours later, Sitaram remained untraced.
