Two 1 PARA Special Forces soldiers missing after Army boat capsizes in Yamuna during training
Two soldiers of the Indian Army’s 1 Parachute Battalion (Special Forces) were still missing on Wednesday after an Army motorboat capsized in the Yamuna river near Hathnikund Barrage during a training exercise on Tuesday evening, triggering a large-scale search and rescue operation involving multiple agencies.
The accident took place in Yamunanagar district of Haryana, where the elite 1 PARA (Special Forces), based at Nahan in Himachal Pradesh, was carrying out watermanship and flood-rescue training. Five Army personnel were on board the motorboat when the vessel reportedly developed a technical fault and began drifting towards the downstream side of the barrage, an area known for turbulent water movement around the sluice gates.
According to the Chandigarh-based defence public relations office, immediate attempts were made to recover the boat after it ran into difficulty. But the craft got caught in strong eddies near the sluice gates and capsized, throwing all five soldiers into the fast-flowing river.
“The teams made swift efforts to retrieve the boat. However, the boat got stuck in strong eddies around the sluice gates and capsized, resulting in the crew getting swept away by the strong currents. Two members of the crew are presently missing,” the defence spokesperson said.
Three of the soldiers managed to swim to safety despite the force of the current. Local reports said they were swept several hundred metres before reaching the vicinity of the Western Yamuna Canal gates and getting out of the water.
The other two soldiers were carried away by the current and could not be traced immediately. Reports also indicated that the personnel taking part in the exercise were wearing life jackets at the time of the accident.
Pratap Nagar police were alerted to the incident at around 6 p.m. on Tuesday. While early reports from the area suggested that one soldier was missing, the Army later confirmed that two members of the five-man crew remained unaccounted for.
A major search and rescue operation was launched soon after the accident. Personnel and equipment from the Indian Army, Indian Air Force, National Disaster Response Force, State Disaster Response Forces of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, local police and the civil administration were pressed into service.
The Indian Air Force deployed two helicopters to help with aerial searches over the barrage and nearby waterways. Search efforts were extended across stretches of the Yamuna as well as the Western Yamuna Canal towards Haryana and the Eastern Yamuna Canal towards Uttar Pradesh, amid concern that the strong current could have carried the missing soldiers into the wider canal network.
At the Army’s request, authorities reduced the discharge of water from Hathnikund Barrage to assist the search. The Haryana Irrigation and Water Resources Department lowered the flow to make conditions safer for rescue teams operating near the barrage and to aid searches along the river and canal system.
Hathnikund Barrage lies on the Yamuna in Yamunanagar district, close to the Haryana-Himachal Pradesh border. Water released through its gates feeds the river and the major canal system in the region, but the sluice gates and surrounding stretches are known to produce strong currents, eddies and turbulence, especially when discharge levels are high.
The Army and district administration have not released the identities of the two missing soldiers.
By Wednesday evening, both personnel were still untraced, with search teams continuing to comb the river, the barrage area and the downstream canal network. Officials said all available resources were being deployed to locate the two 1 PARA (Special Forces) soldiers.
