Mandi mishap: Two more bodies recovered

Two more bodies were recovered and identified from the Beas River on Thursday in which 24 engineering students from Hyderabad were washed away four days ago.

Deputy Commissioner Devesh Kumar confirmed the report saying," We have identified the two bodies we found today. We took their DNA samples. They were male. We are sending them in special choppers. The rescue team has also been increased. Warning boards have also been installed and the fencing work has also started."

The parents of the drowned students also expressed satisfaction with the efforts made by rescuers in finding the bodies and appreciated the government for their attempts.

"At 12:30 P.M. we received the body. By 2 P.M. all formalities were finished. All the parents are eager to find out the bodies. Both state governments have taken good steps. The deep-sea divers have also arrived. We are requesting them but there is nothing else that we can do," said a parent, Madhav Rao.

"The postmortem of the bodies is finished, they will be sent to Delhi by road. From there they will be flown to Hyderabad. The Deep-sea divers have arrived. We hope to find more bodies by tomorrow," added another parent Rama Rao.

Meanwhile, the students of the college to which these 24 students belonged to questioned the Himachal Tourism Authority about absence of signboards and warning alarms saying that the college management can only warn the students before leaving for the tour not after that.

"I agree may be the college must have been a little more careful about the dos and don'ts that we are supposed to tell the students before going. But I really want to ask the Himachal Tourism Department that where were the signboards, where were the fences, where were the alarms in the distance of 14 km," said a student.

"It's saddening that the college is being questioned again and again, but nobody is questioning why there were no signboards or alarms which is more than 50 percent of the reason why this incident happened," she added.

Another student requested the government to take measures to stop any further such accidents.

"I think nobody is to be blamed there, I just request the government to take measures so that further these incidents don't happen," he said.