August 15, 2008	Friday	Sha'aban 12, 1429

RAWALPINDI, Aug 14: Five teenagers, including three brothers, were swept away by a raging torrent at Salgran on Thursday, prompting the authorities to issue a temporary flood warning to hundreds of people in the area.

Quoting eye-witnesses, an official of Rescue 1122 in Rawalpindi said a group of seven teenage boys from Sadiqabad had gone to Salgran and were sitting on a boulder along the bank of a stream when they were hit by a flashflood.

The official said all the seven boys, three of them real brothers – Asif, Sajid and Waqas – along with their two cousins – Sikandar and Zubair – were swept away in the gushing rainwater.

Shortly after the incident, villagers started rescue efforts and also called the Rescue 1122 staff, who also launched a separate operation. Later, the police joined the rescue teams.

Inspector Faisal Saleem, who was leading the police team, told Dawn that they had found bodies of five missing boys. The remaining two – Bilal and Majid – were saved by the rescue teams.

“One of the survivors, who was badly injured and had lost consciousness, was shifted to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) after being given first aid on the site,” a rescuer said. He said: “Everything available to us was used in the rescue operation launched after the awful incident.”

The police official said the bodies were recovered four kilometres away from the site where the incident occurred. Moving scenes were witnessed when the bodies of three real brothers were handed over to their parents.

Separately, two boys drowned in a pond in the jurisdiction of Golra police. The victims identified as Shahzaib and Mohammad Idrees, who belonged to Rawalpindi, were bathing in a pond in Sector G-11 when they drowned.

Rescuers fished their bodies out of the water and handed them over to their relatives.

Mortar shell found: A foreign made mortar shell was found at Westridge, Rawalpindi on Thursday, police said.

A passerby stumbled over the mortar shell lying on the road near a house located at Shallah Valley, Westridge and informed the police.

Shortly after getting the information the police and bomb disposal squad rushed to the scene and cordoned off the area. The bomb disposal squad declared the mortar live and defused it.