Villagers refuse to vacate houses in Punjab’s Ludhiana
During the rescue operation, the NDRF team landed in a peculiar situation when over 350 odd villagers of Bholewal and Nawan Khera villages refused to vacate their houses saying they were ‘comfortable’.
Following the breach in Sutlej river in the wee hours on Monday, rescue teams of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) were dispatched for relief operations in villages — Bolewal Kadim, Allowal and Nawan Khera where people were stuck in houses.
During the rescue operation, the NDRF team landed in a peculiar situation when over 350 odd villagers of Bholewal and Nawan Khera villages refused to vacate their houses saying they were ‘comfortable’.
With knee-deep water in their houses, furniture hastily dumped atop each other to save it from submerging, cattle floating in the fields outside and no place to walk, the villagers still preferred to stay home while refusing to part with their belongings.
Deputy commissioner (DC) Pradeep Kumar Agrawal and the NDRF team officials were seen convincing the residents with folded hands to move to a safer place. However, around 200 residents of Bholewal and another 150 residents of village Nawan Khera refused to accompany the rescue team.
“We have nowhere to go.The water will recede in a day or two, we will manage,” said farmer Sudarshan Singh to the rescue team officials. Incidentally, Sudershan’s paddy field was submerged in water and his house was inundated.
Other villagers said they will stay on the first floor of their house till normalcy is restored. “We don’t need to go anywhere, we are fine on the first floor of our house,” said Parkash Singh, another villager.
Unable to convince them, the NDRF team stationed itself in the boat in the submerged fields so that they can act in case of emergency.
“We have stationed the boat outside the houses in case of emergency situations. Over 50 villagers were rescued in motor boats and moved to safer places,” said DC Agarwal.
“We have so many belongings in the house. Ever since water entered there, we are trying to rearrange things and have piled everything in one corner. We have cattle and cannot leave everything here,” said Gurbaksh Kaur, resident of Bholewal village.
Residents click selfies with Sutlej
Even as panic gripped the area, a number of residents were busy taking selfies with the submerged fields. Some of the youngsters in the village confessed they have never seen such a flooding. At the bridge over the Sutlej river part of the national highway, a huge crowd of commuters had stopped to click pictures of the gushing waters.