Kolkata Magician goes missing in River Ganga after performing an underwater live stunt

Kolkata: A shocking incident of a Kolkata magician taking up a deadly challenge of performing an underwater live stunt and then going missing in River Ganga has turned the heads lately. The magician wanted to perform challenging and life-threatening magic like that of the legendary magician of escape games Harry Houdini, but ended up drowned (as suspected by police).

The magician, Chanchal Lahiri was popular as Jadugar Mandrake is known for performing several magic tricks. In his latest attempt, he had tied himself with steel chains and ropes and lowered into the river from Millenium Park. As challenged by him, he will attempt to unlock himself while being underwater.

Before performing the stunt, Lahiri had said, "If I can open it up then it will be magic, but if I can't it will be tragic.”

However, unfortunately, and much to his fans and followers’ dismay, the magician disappeared near pillar number 28 of the Howrah Bridge. As promised by him, he was expected to come out of the water by his family, police and onlookers but that did not happen and he did not come up to the bank of the river.

The police, immediately, after the incident, launched a search operation along with Disaster Management Group in search of the magician. But they could not locate him.

A senior police official state, "We tried to spot him. But it seems the stream has swept him away. Our divers dived deep, but could not locate him... Because of darkness, we had to temporarily stop our search operation on Sunday evening. We will resume it tomorrow."

Before performing the magic, the magician had taken permission but despite that, the concerned authority did not take any proper security measures.

For performing the magic, the magician was picked up from a boat by a crane and then lowered into the river. As was challenged by him, he had to untie himself on his own and come up.

When he did not come up even after more than ten minutes, the onlookers present at the spot panicked and informed the local North Port police station. Notably, this same trick was successfully performed by him at the same venue 21 years ago.

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