Srinagar, Jan. 25 -- The deceased, who rescued hundreds trapped in the flood-swollen Srinagar in 2014, had won laurels from everyone including the then state governor N N Vohra.

By Farooq Shah

LITTLE did the 45-year-old Dal Lake dweller, Riyaz Ahmad Kanna, know the newly launched boat ambulance that he tirelessly worked on would soon carry his own lifeless body to hospital for a post-mortem. The ace swimmer, who his friends describe as an affable man with a golden heart, had on the evening of January 9 gone missing briefly before his body was retrieved from the icy-cold waters of the Dal Lake.

"Riyaz is missing and people are searching for him in the lake," Sahil, a nephew of the deceased, informed Niyaz Nabi over his phone. Niyaz and ...