SUKKUR, May 30: The body of a student of Bahria College Khairpur who drowned in Mir Wah (canal) on Tuesday could not have been recovered till Friday evening.

Raza Muslim, a student of class XII, had drowned in the canal where he went for the swimming.

Local divers and a team of divers from Pakistan Navy are said to be searching for the body in the canal.

Mohammad Akram and Syed Iqtidar Hussain, the father and the uncle of Raza Muslim, respectively, who had come here from Islamabad and Karachi, said that despite repeated requests, the irrigation officials had not closed the water supply to the canal, while there were no irrigation officials at different regulators of Mir Wah.

They said that the water flow at regulators was at the height of 10 feet and according to the divers if the water level fell to five feet, it would be easy for them to locate the body.

They said that it seemed that the management of the Bahria College was helpless as they had not taken any concrete step in the matter.

When contacted, the chief engineer of the Sukkur Barrage, Haroon Memon, told Dawn that after drowning of the boy, they had closed the water supply to Mir Wah and alerted irrigation officials at different regulators.

However, he added that closing of water supply to any canal was not easy as it took 24 hours to shut water supply to a canal.

It is learnt that the team of divers of Pakistan Navy would go back to Karachi on Saturday morning after which it would be an uphill task to recover the body.