“A few years ago, a five-year-old girl had drowned in the Yamuna and there was little chance of her surviving. I somehow managed to rescue her, gave her CPR and she started breathing again”, recalled rescue diver Shehzad Ali. Actively working in the Yamuna river stretch in Delhi for more than a decade now, the 48-year-old diver said, he has saved more than 300 lives so far.
Sharing his sentiments about the job with The Hindu, Mr. Ali said, “There is a joy in rescuing people and uniting them with their loved ones.”
From the fear of being drowned to contracting skin infections, rescue divers at Yamuna — one of the most polluted rivers in the world — fight a daily battle with death.
The rescue club
Mr. Ali is part of a 20-member team known as the ‘Rescue Boat Club’ (RBC), which guards more than half-a-dozen spots marked “dangerous” along the 22-km long stretch of Yamuna in Delhi. The club is the only one of its kind that retrieves the bodies of victims of accident, suicide, or murder from the water.
Set up in 1965, the RBC is run by the Delhi government and falls under the jurisdiction of the District Magistrate (East).
“I manage to save at least 10 lives every month. I do it more as a social service than as a job. My mission is to rescue everyone,” he said. Ali and his fellow divers are now bracing for tough days ahead as the number of calls tends to rise between March and September. When the Yamuna is in spate during the monsoon, the divers remain on high alert, attending to several calls a day. They also set up night camps on the river bank to keep watch.
The RBC receives over 200 emergency calls every year. Of the 213 calls received in 2021, the team rescued 31 persons alive and recovered 76 bodies from the city’s drains, canals and rivulets.
Harish Kumar, the boat club in-charge, said his team of divers has a high success rate in rescuing people and recovering bodies as the members remain alert throughout the day and rush immediately to the spot whenever a mishap is reported.
“In addition to responding to calls, they [divers] also keep a strict vigil and if they see a person accidentally drowning or attempting suicide, the divers rush to their rescue,” Mr. Kumar added.
The RBC carried out one of its most difficult operations in 2017 when the Ghazipur landfill collapsed. Several persons got swept into the nearby canal and two died. Mr. Kumar said that despite the entire team of divers being pressed into service, it took them several hours to retrieve the bodies from the pile of trash.
Risks involved
Mr. Ali said a rescue diver’s work comes with its share of risks. “The Yamuna is known to be among the most polluted rivers; all kinds of chemicals and industrial waste float on its surface,” he said.
One of his four sons is following his footsteps and rescues victims at Yamuna’s Wazirabad barrage. “I taught him (son) how to swim and trace bodies of those who are drowning. Like me, he too is passionate about saving lives. I hope my other sons also carry the legacy forward,” Mr. Ali said.
Naushad Ali, 47, another diver, shared an additional risk that divers put themselves through during rescue operations — once they dive to depths of over 20 metres in the river, they begin to bleed from their ears.
“If a person’s body is lying really deep in the water, it becomes difficult for us to hold our breath for that long and we end up making several trips to the surface to bring them up,”Mr. Naushad said.
Lack of safety equipment
“Each day is a game of life and death for us. We don’t have any protective equipment to support us or insurance cover. For us only the victim matters”, said Mr. Ali.
A senior government official at the District Magistrate’s (East) office said the divers will soon be provided with safety gear and a plan to provide each of them with an insurance policy is under way.
“We appreciate their work and the number of lives they have saved... In around two months, safety kits like gloves and other protective equipment will be arranged for them,” the official said, adding that the number of rescue boats will also be increased in the coming months.
Facing public ire
Mr. Kumar pointed out that during major rescue operations, divers often become victims of the ire of the public, which interferes with their work. “We always try our best to save lives and while we are searching to recover a body, the victim’s kin sometimes lose their calm and assault us for not being able to find the person quicker,” he said.
Moreover, as the bodies of the victims decompose, it becomes difficult for the divers to recover them quickly. “Many a time, the limbs or the arms fall off due to the body getting decomposed. It takes hours to retrieve a body in that state,” said Mr. Naushad. However, the sight of a corpse does not deter or intimidate the divers from carrying out their work.
No respite
The divers remain on duty even during festivals when the emergency calls see a spike. “Mostly during Holi every year, we get at least five calls of drowning as people get into drunken brawls by the riverside,” pointed out Rais Ahmed, 45, a rescue diver with the RBC.
On occasions such as Ganesh Chaturthi, Durga Puja and Chhath celebrations, people tend to break barricades and attempt to go deep inside the river. Several deaths have occurred due to devotees carelessly breaching the restrictions.
According to Mr. Ahmed, searching for bodies in Outer Delhi’s Bawana canal poses the biggest challenge because it is 10-feet deep and has a strong current. It takes two-three days to recover bodies from there, he said.
The RBC divers belong to Jagatpur village in Wazirabad, where they grew up swimming in the Yamuna and rushing to rescue people if they spotted someone drowning. Today rescuing people has become the source of their livelihood.
During the northeast Delhi riots, all 20 divers were deployed to fish out bodies of the victims of violence from the Chandbagh drain. It took them several hours to search for the bodies, during which the divers also faced stone-pelting from mobs.
Published - April 01, 2022 11:20 pm IST
