IANS/Mandi, Himachal Pradesh

Rescue workers and army personnel yesterday carried out a search operation to locate 19 students of an engineering college and a tour operator who went missing after strong currents of the Beas river washed them away.
Teachers and fellow students, from the engineering college in Hyderabad, told how they screamed at the group about the torrent of water which appeared without warning.
The surge of water occurred when the Larji hydropower project dam opened its floodgates, sending tonnes of water downstream, officials said.
Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, who held a high-level meeting in state capital Shimla to monitor the search and rescue operation, issued directions to follow safety norms like blowing of hooters while discharging water from dams.
“We have traced five bodies in the past two days,” Jaideep Singh, commanding officer of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), said.
He said a team of 84 people, comprising 10 underwater divers, carried out the search operation in the river from Thalaut near Hanogi Mata temple, the accident spot, to the Pandoh dam.
The dam is some 15km downstream from the accident scene.
Official sources said an army team also started a search operation yesterday.
More than 60 students and faculty members of the V N R Vignana Jyothi Institute of Engineering and Technology were on an excursion to Manali.
Some of them were getting themselves photographed on the bank of the river when the sudden rush of water washed them away.
The state government has announced a compensation of Rs150,000 each to the families of the victims.
Aisa Hussain, whose son was swept away in the river, said: “I want my child back. No stone should be left unturned.”
“He should be traced at all costs. If he’s not alive, I want the body of my son back,” she said.
She is among 55 parents of the missing students camping in Mandi town and desperately waiting to hear about their sons and daughters.
“I fail to understand how my son, who was a very good swimmer, was swept away,” said B V Suba Rao.
He said most of the children who drowned due to the negligence of the dam officials were brilliant.
The Himachal Pradesh High Court said it was not only a case of callousness but grave negligence.
“It’s a sad tale by reason of the fact that sheer fun of the young students turned out to be fatal as a consequence of utter and callous negligence of the power project authorities,” Justice Tarlok Singh Chauhan said.
Meanwhile, the body of Devashish Bose was flown to Hyderabad yesterday evening.
The rescue workers retrieved his body earlier in the day.
A pall of gloom descended on the house of Bose in Central Excise Colony in Bagh Amberpet. The shocked parents had rushed to Himachal Pradesh on Monday.
The bodies of four other victims, including three girls, were brought to Hyderabad by a defence aircraft in the early hours of yesterday and handed over to relatives.
Heart rending scenes were witnessed as the parents arrived at Begumpet airport. A large number of relatives and friends gathered to receive the bodies.
The last rites of B Rambabu were performed in his village in Nalgonda district while A Vijetha, Gampala Aishwarya and Lakshmi Gayathri were cremated in Hyderabad.
The grief-stricken parents of Vijetha were inconsolable as the funeral pyre was lit at Panjagutta crematorium. Other family members and Vijetha’s friends from the college were seen consoling them. Representatives from the management of the college also attended the funeral.
Telangana Home Minister Nayani Narasimha Reddy was camping in Mandi for the second day to monitor the rescue and relief work.
“We are making all efforts to retrieve the bodies as early as possible but the rescue teams are facing problems due to the water level and the sand,” he said.
The accident site is located some 200km from Shimla and on the border of Kullu and Mandi districts.