MUZAFFARABAD: The bodies of a man and his five children, who were traveling in a car that was swept away by a raging torrent into Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK's) Kallar Nullah late on Saturday, were fished out by rescuers on Sunday, police said.

Mohammad Riaz, a taxi driver, was returning to Mirpur, the lakeside city of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) from his Choki Dhadra Parati village in Bhimber district, through Kasguma-Samahni link road on Saturday night when his car swept away by the strong currents of fast-flowing Kallar Nullah.

The deceased had taken three sons and two daughters, aged between seven and 21 years, to visit their grandmother on the first day of Eidul Fitr.

Eyewitnesses said the deceased driver waited for about two hours along the bank of the swollen water channel but later drove through it, against the advice of the people present on the spot, “because he had got late.”

“When his car reached in the middle of the water channel, it was swept away by the ferocious flow of water,” Chaudhry Nasir, a neighbor of the victims, told Dawn.

Dozens of people rushed to the spot and rmade efforts throughout the night to rescue them, but failed to locate the car – a 2008 model Toyota Corolla.

However, the rescue work succeeded after professional divers were brought from a private divers club in Mirpur, Nasir said.

The car had sunk to the deep portion of the waterbed some 15 feet ahead of the spot from where it had swept away.

“Since the front and rear door glasses had been rolled up, all bodies were trapped inside the car,” he said.

AJK minister Chaudhry Ali Shan Soni personally supervised the rescue efforts as the 50-year-old deceased driver was not only his electorate but also a die-hard worker.

He said the bodies had been removed to the village for burial.