Kolkata: Anandapur youths rescue 4 after car plunges into pond

KOLKATA: Quick thinking by four local Anandapur youths on Monday night, when they chose to dive into a pond hearing a huge splash, helped rescue four persons trapped in a car stuck in the mud-bed of the pond. Though the youths dived into the pond, smashed windowpanes and managed to drag out the quartet trapped inside, the car could be pulled out of the pond only on Tuesday morning — six hours later.
The accident took place at Subhash Nagar in Anandapur at 10pm on Monday.Akash Roy alias Sunny was driving a red hatchback. Three of his friends — Rahul Gupta, Vicky Choudhary and Puja Thapa — were in the car. All four are in their early 20s and stay in Kasba and Mukundapur. They were headed to a Tagore Park pub when Roy misjudged a turning on a narrow lane from the Anandapur Service Road owing to heavy waterlogging and car fell in the pond face down.

An officer said: “When their car reached Netaji Sporting Club at Anandapur, the occupants got confused as there was heavy waterlogging. They took a dead-end road instead of the adjoining road that led to the bar. This bylane ended up at the pond. Although this pond is barricaded, its main gate was open. Roy stuck to the road but drove directly into the pond.”
The splash drew Mintu Sarkar, who stays right on the edge of the pond, out of his three-storey house. “Three of my other friends — Rajesh Shaw, Rithi Das and Subho Das — also came out. We realized that we needed to rescue the occupants. For the first few minutes, we could see the occupants crying for help as the car was sinking.
We initially thought to tow out the car but realized that we had no equipment. The four of us jumped into the water. It was raining but we kept calm. At least 50-60 locals came out and they all lent a hand in rescuing all four," said Sarkar.
Das said, “We could see the occupants screaming desperately. We did take a while to break open the lock - especially since it was raining, the water level was higher than normal, and the car had landed in that part of the pond where we usually do not swim.
The elders here say that it is deep but at that moment, it seemed deeper. But had we waited for the police and fire department, it would have been late.”
Police said all four trapped in the car escaped with no injuries.