Beas tragedy: Two more bodies recovered, 4 still untraceable

Two more bodies of students have been recovered three weeks after 25 persons, including 24 students and a co-tour leader of a Hyderabad-based engineering college had drowned in River Beas, taking the total number of bodies fished out so far to 21, a senior police official said today.

The bloated body of M. Vishnu Vardhan Reddy from Hyderabad was recovered last evening, while the body of another victim, identified as Baswaraj Sandeep was fished out today, Deputy Commissioner (Mandi) Devesh Kumar said. Both the bodies had remained underwater for more than three weeks and were spotted floating in Pandoh Dam, 15 km downstream Beas from the accident spot Thalot, rescuers said, adding both the bodies were badly decomposed. With this the total number of bodies recovered so far has risen to 21 and the fate of four persons, including three students and a co-tour leaders is not known yet.

Meanwhile, the search operations for the remaining four persons continued for the 23rd day and rescue teams expressed hope that they would be recovered soon. The students from the V N R Vignana Jyothi Institute of Engineering and Technology, were on a holiday trip to Manali, where they were swept away on the evening of June 8 when Larji hydro-power project authorities suddenly released water from the Dam allegedly without prior notification.

The Himachal Pradesh High Court had taken suo moto notice of the tragedy and awarded an interim compensation of Rs5 lakh each to the families of the students on June 25.

A division bench of Chief Justice Mansoor Ahmad Mir and Justice Tarlok Singh Chauhan had also made it clear that a criminal probe into the matter would continue and courts would monitor its progress.