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Bengal

Gangasagar Mela: Ham radio operators help elderly woman unite with family in UP

Kolkata: An elderly woman who went missing at the Gangasagar Mela was united with her children after ham radio operators successfully managed to trace her family members at Uttar Pradesh.

It was on January 13 when 70-year-old Ram Rani was found lying on the road with her hip broken at Gangasagar Mela. The volunteers at the mela noticed her and she was shifted to a temporary hospital set up for the mela.

"The disaster management team noticed Rani lying on the road and immediately informed us. With the help of the district magistrate of South 24-Parganas Dr P Ulaganathan, we shifted her to a temporary hospital set up at the Gangasagar Mela venue," Ambarish Nag Biswas, custodian and secretary of West Bengal Radio Club (WBRC), an organisation of ham radio enthusiasts in the state said.

Rani, a resident of Auraiya district in Uttar Pradesh, had come to Gangasagar Mela to take the holy dip.

"After talking to Rani for around one and a half hours, we came to know her address and then contacted her local police station through our ham radio team in Uttar Pradesh. Then we contacted her son and he took her to their hometown on January 19. Her family did not file any missing FIR," pointed out Biswas.

It might be mentioned that an integrated control room was set up to monitor the situation and a ham radio team was also there to trace missing persons along with the help from district administration.

The state government had initiated the necessary planning from September 2019, onwards to ensure a safe and secure Gangasagar Mela 2020, that takes place at Sagar Island in January every year where millions of pilgrims from all over the country turn up to take a holy dip at the confluence of river Ganga.

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