Gujarat : Salangpur BAPS Swami, 2 Others Drown in Flood Tragedy

Bhavnagar, Gujarat – A swami of Salangpur BAPS temple and two others including a 10-year-old boy drowned in the flood waters after the car in which they were travelling along with four others swept away in the strong currents of the floods on the low-lying causeway bridge near Godhavata village in Ranpur taluka of Botad district on the early hours of Monday. 

The devotees including the swami were travelling from Bochasan to the famous pilgrimage site of Salangpur BAPS temple in the Ertiga car  when the incident occured. In this accident, the bodies of two persons identified as Krishnakant Pandya, 60 and 10-year-old Prabuddha Kasiya were recovered by the rescue teams, while the NDRF team is still searching for the missing dead body of Swami Shanti Charit of the BAPS temple. 

A total of seven people were travelling in the car, including saints Apoorvapurush Swami and Shanticharit Swami of Salangpur BAPS temple, as well as devotees Vivek Kapadia, Nikunj Sojitra, Divyesh Patel (driver), Krishnakantbhai Pandya and Prabuddha Kachhiya. All these people live at Salangpur BAPS temple.

When the car reached the causeway near Godhavata village around 12 midnight last night, the water flow was very strong due to the rain. However, the driver, Divyesh Patel, tried to drive the car through the water flow, but the car got stuck.

In this accident, Apoorvapurush Swami, Vivek Kapadia, Nikunj Sojitra and Divyesh Patel (driver) were rescued after coming out of the water, however, Shanticharit Swami, Krishnakantbhai Pandya and 10-year-old child Prabuddha Kachhiya were swept away by the strong current of the water.

The bodies of Krishnakantbhai Pandya and Prabuddha Kachhiya have since been found, while the search for Shanticharit Swami is still ongoing. Swami’s slippers have been found from the scene, which shows that he too might have been swept away by the current.

Barwala Provincial Officer S.V. Chaudhary said that seven passengers were travelilng in an Ertiga car from Bochasan to Salangpur BAPS temple.  They were trying to cross the Godhavata causeway, where the water current was very high, and the car got stuck. Four of them survived and three people got stuck in the car. The bodies of two of them have been found. They have been sent for postmortem, while one person is still missing. The NDRF team has been searching for the whereabouts of Swami Shanti charit. Apart from this, an aerial survey has been conducted up to a distance of one kilometer using drones.