A 48-year-old Kshetra Panchayat or Block Development Committee (BDC) member was found dead on the banks of the Kheerganga river near Kapkot in Uttarakhand’s Bageshwar district on Saturday morning, police said.
Police identified the deceased as Tara Singh Koranga, a resident of Jalekh village.
Koranga was a sitting Kshetra Panchayat member from the Gadera area. His family lived in Jalekh, while he stayed alone in a house near the Kheerganga river, police officers said.
The incident came to light on Saturday morning when a three-year-old girl from a neighbouring house noticed Koranga from her veranda. She alerted her mother, who informed other neighbours.
“We received information from Kapkot police station in the morning that the body of a person was visible in the Kheerganga river and that a State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) team was required to retrieve it. Upon receiving the information, an SDRF team from the Kapkot post, led by sub-inspector Rajendra Singh Rawat, immediately left for the spot,” SDRF Commandant Arpan Yaduvanshi said.
“Our team recovered the body of Tara Singh from the banks of the Kheerganga river near Kapkot block. The team brought the body out of the river and carried it to the road before handing it over to the district police for necessary action,” Yaduvanshi added.
{{/usCountry}}“Our team recovered the body of Tara Singh from the banks of the Kheerganga river near Kapkot block. The team brought the body out of the river and carried it to the road before handing it over to the district police for necessary action,” Yaduvanshi added.
{{/usCountry}}Police took the body into custody and sent it for a postmortem. “The exact cause and circumstances of the death would be established after the post-mortem report and further investigation,” an officer said.
According to the officers, Koranga is survived by his parents, wife and three children—a son and two daughters.