Kerala delegation urges Siddaramaiah to resume search for missing driver

Bengaluru, Aug 29 (PTI) A delegation led by Kerala MP M K Raghavan met Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday and requested him to resume search operations to trace the Kozhikode driver and two others who went missing following a massive landslide in Shirur last month.

The incident, which occurred on National Highway 66 on July 16, claimed the lives of eight people.

Raghavan, a Lok Sabha MP from Kozhikode along with Kerala MLA AKM Ashraf and Karwar MLA Satish Krishna Sail met Siddaramaiah in his office today and also submitted a letter to him requesting for permission to bring a dredger for search operations in Gangawali River.

In the letter, the Kerala MP stated,"...recent landslide happened in Shirur has resulted in the missing of three individuals: Arun (from Kerala), Jagannathan and Lokesh. As a representative of Kozhikode, I am profoundly grateful to your government and district administration including police, who has worked day and night with rescue and relief operations effectively coordinating with various state and central agencies to find the missing persons.

"Despite our hard work, we are unable to locate the missing persons. However, we believe that there is still a possibility of finding them with the aid of a dredger. Therefore we respectfully seek your permission to deploy a dredger in Gangawali river to search for the missing individuals," the letter further stated.

The delegation requested the chief minister to give necessary instructions to the district administration of Karwar to resume the rescue operations immediately using a dredger.

According to officials, the search operations were halted on July 28 due to adverse weather conditions, high river current and other factors. Later, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan wrote a letter to Siddaramaiah requesting him to resume operations to trace the lorry driver from Kozhikode following which the operations were resumed on August 14 but again the search operations were halted due to various factors. PTI