Four youths went missing after a boat carrying seven people overturned in Kota’s Kotri canal during a Durga idol immersion ceremony on Tuesday evening, prompting a search operation involving the SDRF, NDRF, municipal divers and local administration teams.
The incident took place near the Steel Bridge after the small boat capsized in the middle of the canal. Three people were rescued by local residents, while the remaining four were swept away and could not be traced immediately, according to a report by the Times of India.
Education minister Madan Dilawar directed the district administration to begin an immediate search and rescue operation and reached the site to supervise the response. Kota district collector Piyush Samariya and city superintendent of police Tejaswini Gautam also arrived at the location.
Dilawar told the media that the canal area was prohibited for idol immersion and that no idol ceremony was permitted at that stretch. “Seven youths ventured for immersion of idols in a small unsafe boat that overturned in the middle of the canal, sweeping away four of the youths while 3 swam and were rescued by people,” he said.
The search operation included around 15 to 17 SDRF personnel, municipal corporation divers, civil defence teams and other local administration personnel. Authorities also stopped the flow of water in the canal to support the rescue effort and improve conditions for the teams searching for the missing youths.
Rakesh Vyas, deputy commissioner of the Kota Municipal Corporation, said rescue teams were dispatched from KST soon after the incident near the Steel Bridge was reported. He said the location was not a designated immersion site where municipal teams had initially been deployed.
The incident occurred during organised religious activity in which safe access, water conditions and crowd management were central to the response. The municipal corporation had deployed teams at designated immersion locations, but the canal stretch where the boat overturned was not among those sites, according to Vyas.
Officials continued the search for the four missing youths as SDRF, NDRF, divers and civil defence personnel worked alongside local residents and district authorities. The operation remained underway at the time of the report.
