By IANS
Ghaziabad : The Rishikesh Police Thursday recommended the name of Pawan Soni, feared drowned in the Ganges while rescuing two boys, for the Jeevan Rakshak Padak (Life Saver Medal), even as a frantic search was on to recover his body, police said.
“We have dispatched several teams for the search operations with little luck so far,” Ravinder Singh, officer in-charge of the Lakshman Jhula police station, told IANS over phone from Rishikesh.
“Recommendation has been made to the Uttarakhand government for the Jeevan Rakshak Padak for Pawan Soni since he exhibited enormous courage to plunge into the Ganges to save the two kids, despite strong currents.”
In an act of bravery, 20-year-old Soni had jumped into the Ganges near Lakshman Jhula at Rishikesh after seeing the two kids – Anil Sharma and Sunil Kumar – being sucked into the water, but was swept away himself by the strong currents.
Sharma and Kumar had come from Meerut to visit the holy city a few days ago.
“Our search for Pawan Soni’s body is still on. But the river is very deep and cold at the point where Soni drowned. It is making the task more difficult,” Singh said.
“Because of the strong currents we also have no clue how far the body may have been carried. There are also a lot of stones and boulders and we fear his body could even have got stuck among them.”
Soni, according to his family in Ghaziabad, on the outskirts of the national capital, was a first year student pursuing undergraduate studies.
The youngest of five siblings, he left for Rishikesh with a friend on a holiday.
Last August, Kakan Banerji, an alumna of Lady Sriram College here, had drowned after slipping into Mandakini river while on a trek to Rudraprayag.
Her body was found after more than 10 days.