In Andhra Pradesh's Chittoor district, the relatives of P Rithima were also hopeful that she might have survived.
Srujan Panuganti, who survived the tragedy, recalled that he too was taking photographs minutes before the incident and had come back to the bus to take a bottle to collect the holy water of Beas and take it back to Hyderabad.
“On the way, a local man told me a siren has been sounded on release of water from the dam and I rushed towards my friends and started alerting those in the river...but with sudden heavy release of water my classmates were washed away,” Srujan said at his residence in Bandlaguda here.
As Srujan was narrating the incident, he got a call on his mobile and his voice became choked for a while as he was lost for words. He broke down after hearing the news about the death of his close friend Shabir Hussain Sheikh, whose body was recovered from the river today.
Srujan's father Vishwanth said they had shut down the TV since his son came back home as the coverage in the visual media would have added to his already traumatic experience. Meanwhile, the final rites of Debashish Bose were conducted today after his body was brought to the city last night. The last rites of four other students have already been completed amid heart-rendering scenes.
Andhra Pradesh Minister P Narayana, who is supervising the search operations in HP, said he was hopeful that the remaining bodies were likely to surface on the river by this evening or tomorrow.
“We are exploring on pressing more manpower and usage of other technologies to locate the bodies as the weather is also obstructing the search operations and water is also being released into the river. By today evening or tomorrow more bodies are likely to float on the water and we will hand over them to their parents,” he said.
Telangana Home Minister Nayani Narasimha Reddy, who is camping in Mandi along with parents of missing students, said, he has already sought involvement of more forces including from military, for the search operation and expressed hope that more bodies were likely to be traced in a day or two. “We want to involve more military personnel for search operations, besides deploying advanced equipment including latest under-water search cameras for divers to further strengthen the ongoing efforts,” Reddy said.
Meanwhile, BJP Telangana state president and MLA G Kishan Reddy today urged Prime minsiter Narendra Modi to use latest technology to trace the missing students in river Beas, in addition to deploying the Navy for more focused search. There is an impression among parents and relatives of the missing students that though the government and defence forces are trying their best, technology has not been fully deployed to trace them, as three days have passed since the tragedy and only six bodies have been recovered so far, he said in a letter to Modi.
