Saptakoshi Missing Update: One Body Found, Search Ongoing for Missing Diver

The Armed Police Force (APF) of Nepal has continued the search for a missing diver in the Saptakoshi River since early Friday morning. During the operation, one dead body was found, but it has not yet been identified.

On Thursday afternoon, two APF personnel — Hardev Rajbanshi and Suraj Saud — went missing while participating in a monsoon disaster preparedness drill in the Saptakoshi River at Hanumannagar Kankalini Municipality-1, Saptari. Rajbanshi was posted at Shree Antu Company in Ilam and currently working at the Dantakali Special Task Training Center in Saptari, while Saud was with No. 13 Battalion in Parsa and stationed at Chhinnamasta Headquarters.

They were part of a 56-member team conducting a rescue simulation in the river starting from 7:45 AM on Thursday. The two went missing at 3:10 PM during the drill.

To find them, around 60 personnel from the Dantakali Special Task Training Center, No. 6 Battalion Saptari, and the Disaster Management Training School in Kurintar have been deployed. This includes specially trained divers.

According to APF spokesperson DSP Shailendra Thapa, search efforts have been intensified. On Friday morning, a team of 35 personnel, including 4 divers, was sent from the Dantakali training center under a DSP’s command. Similarly, 20 personnel with disaster management training were deployed from No. 6 Battalion Saptari.

For further support, five experienced divers led by DSP Purushottam Bhandari from the APF Disaster Management Training School in Kurintar were dispatched at 10:45 PM on Thursday. Bhandari, trained in Bangladesh in 2012, has been a dive instructor in Nepal since then. He said the situation in the Koshi River can only be properly assessed on-site.

Both missing personnel had completed diver training in 2080 and 2081 BS and had been involved in various rescue missions since then. They were participating in a nationwide monsoon preparedness exercise at the time of the incident.