Himachal tragedy: Bodies of four victims to be flown to Hyderabad

Bodies of four students from a Andhra-based engineering college, who were among their 24 classmates washed away in Beas river in Himachal Pradesh, will be flown to Hyderabad by Monday night, Telangana Director General of Police Anurag Sharma said.

The 24 other students, who were part of the 48-member group on tour, and survived the tragedy will also be flown in, he said. “The students had gone for a study tour and 24 of them washed away on Sunday evening in the river Beas near Thalot on Manali-Kiratpur Highway, 40 kilometre from Mandi, and bodies of four students, three girls and a boy, were traced and their postmortem was also conducted,” added Sharma.

In Himachal Pradesh, the rescue teams comprising Sashastra Seema Bal, state police, homeguard and local divers are carrying out search to trace rest of the students who had washed away.

“Bodies of A Vijetha, Lakshmi Gayathri, G Aishwarya and B Rambabu will be flown by a helicopter from the incident site to Chandigarh from where they will be brought in a flight to Hyderabad. The 24 students who survived the incident will fly to Hyderabad," the Telangana police chief said.

At least three faculty members are also likely to be flown along with 24 survivors. Telangana Police are in touch with their counterparts since the incident and a police team along with senior government officials and Home Minister Naini Narsimha Reddy had already gone to the spot and spoken to local authorities there to make necessary arrangements in this regard, Sharma said.

The DGP said he had already spoken to senior police officers of Himachal Pradesh and the search operations will be further intensified once the water level in the river subsidies. “The water-level is more. We have to wait till the water subsidies. Extra boats and divers will also be pressed into service and with help from army, the rescue operation will be intensified once the water-level comes down,” Sharma said.

Image: Himachal Pradesh CM Virbhadra Singh interacts with the friends of the victims. Photograph: PTI