A woman in shackles swam across the Mahanadi river from Chhattisgarh to Odisha.
The woman swam and floated along a 17-km river course throughout the night of July 31-August 1 before being rescued by fishermen in Odisha.
Arpit Pattnaik
Amidst the grim news of people being swept away and buried by the relentless rains across the country, a mentally challenged woman with her two legs shackled had a miraculous escape. She swam a 17 km distance from Chhattisgarh to Odisha through the swollen Mahanadi River.
The woman is a resident of Purath village in the Pushor police station jurisdiction of Chhattisgarh district. She left her home on Wednesday night and entered the waters of the Mahanadi. In the early hours of Thursday, fishermen ventured into the Mahanadi near Palsada, under the jurisdiction of Rengali police station. They spotted a woman floating in the water and promptly rescued her with their country boat. Although she was incoherent, she managed to provide her village address. The local police later handed her over to her relatives.
“Due to her mental health issues, her family often kept her under strict watch, sometimes even restraining her. Despite being shackled, she managed to reach the nearby Mahanadi River. It remains unclear how she entered the swollen river, but once she did, she instinctively began to swim,” said Durga Abhimanyu, inspector in charge of Rengali Police Station in Odisha’s Jharsuguda district.
Mr. Abhimanyu stated that, according to her relatives, she was married five years ago near the Saria police station in Chhattisgarh. Three months later, she began exhibiting symptoms of mental illness. Her parental relatives brought her back home, but her mental condition noticeably deteriorated. The village committee permitted the family to keep her in shackles.
Despite floating all night in Mahanadi, the woman was found healthy and responding to queries of people, said a local villager. A similar incident had happened in 2016. An 18-year-old girl was fished out from the waters of the Mahanadi river in Jharsuguda district after she kept swimming and floating for more than 12 hours along a 50 km-long river course. The girl, Soni Yadav, had fallen into Mahanadi River near Chandrahasini Devi Temple in Janjgir district of Chhattisgarh.
