A 21-year-old man went missing and eight others were injured, one of them critically, when two boats caught fire and were gutted completely in the midst of Hussain Sagar Lake in Hyderabad, police said on Monday.
According to the first information report (FIR) registered by the Secretariat police station, a copy of which was seen by HT, the incident occurred during the “Bharat Mata Maha Aarthi” programme, organised by the Bharat Mata Foundation at People’s Plaza, Necklace Road on the banks of Hussain Sagar on the occasion of 76th Republic Day celebrations on Sunday.
The programme was attended by Telangana governor Jishnu Dev Varma, Union minister for coal G Kishan Reddy and other dignitaries and witnessed by thousands of people.
The event concluded with bursting of crackers from a jetty in the midst of the lake at around 9 pm. The organisers carried the crackers in a boat and were bursting them on a jetty adjacent to the boat when the incident took place. “While burning the crackers, one of the crackers missed the direction and entered into the boat where the crackers were stored, resulting in burning of all the crackers at a time,” police official B Hanumantha Rao, who registered the FIR said.
Within minutes, both the jetty and the boat were engulfed in flames and were completely gutted. There were around 15 people aboard the boats and all of them jumped into the lake to save themselves. Immediately a couple of other boats reached the spot, rescued them and brought to the shore.
Some of them sustained burn injuries. “One of them, Ganapathi (22) from Andhra Pradesh’s East Godavari district, sustained 80% burns and is undergoing treatment at a private hospital. His condition is critical,” another police official, on condition of anonymity, said.
The other injured included Palle Pranith and Dubasi Sunil (both boat drivers), Chintala Krishna and Sai Chand, who are receiving treatment at Secunderabad Yashoda Hospital. Three others sustained minor injuries and they were discharged after first aid, police said.
On Monday morning, police received a complaint from two people – Raghavendra and Sai Sandeep, stating that their friend Ajay, who boarded the boat along with them, also jumped into the lake and was since then missing.
They told the police that they, along with Ajay came from Nagaram village to the Hussain Sagar lake to meet one cracker supplier Manikantha, to repay some money owed to him. Manikantha took them into the lake in the boat to witness the cracker bursting programme.
“When the boats caught fire, we all jumped into the water. We came out of the lake but lost sight of Ajay,” his friends told the police.
The police are investigating further, questioning Ajay’s friends and searching for him in the lake. They could not trace him till evening.
