PESHAWAR, Aug 16: Bodies of five more picnickers, who had drowned in river Kabul when a boat capsized on Saturday, have been found near Khairabad, police officials said on Monday.
Four bodies had been fished out by local divers on Saturday. Divers of Special Services Group who had been called from Mangla Dam to recover the bodies ended the search operation on Monday, said officials.
The victims whose bodies were recovered include Jamshed Amir, sonof Amirzada, and Rahim Gul, son of Mian Gul, residents of Gharibabad; Ibrar, son of Shabir, a resident of Faqir Colony; and Anwar Sher, a resident of Swabi.
The SSG team had asked the relatives of the victims to watch the Indus River flow near the Attock Bridge, Kahut and Shagai in Nizampur areaand Kalabagh in Mianwali district, sources said.
It expressed the fear that the remaining bodies might have been buried under sand, which would come out of water after two or three days. Relatives of the victims have threatened to lodge a case against Nowshera District Nazim Jehanzeb Khan, the Sarhad Tourism Department and the contractors of the Kund National Park for not taking safety measures for visitors.
Nowshera police have started investigation but not registered a caseagainst the boatman who offered 25 picnickers to board a small boat for crossing the Kabul river from Khairabad to the Kund National Park.
Nowshera SSP Mian Mazharul Haq Kakakhel said he had proposed to the local government that the boats at Khairabad should be registered and a restriction on the number of people allowed to board a boat should be imposed.
The bodies of two people who drowned in the Indus on Independence Day could also not be recovered, sources said. Yousuf, son of Zahoor, and Asif, son of Ashraf, a resident of Swabi district, had drowned on Saturday when they were swimming near the Kund National Park, they said.
