The search to trace the three persons, including a father and his son, who went missing after a boat capsized in Jhelum River in Srinagar, continued on Thursday.
Six people, including two children and their mother, were killed and three went missing as a boat carrying the students to school on Tuesday morning capsized on the Jhelum in Gandbal, Batwara.
All the children on the board studied in the school across the river.
The boat overturned around 8 am after hitting an iron pole in the middle of the river as the wooden boat headed east from Gandabal towards Batwara with 19 passengers on board.
The State Disaster Response Force commandant, Atul Sharma, said the search operation is still going on.
“There is no further update,” he said.
Besides SDRF, the other agencies involved in the search operation include National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Indian Navy’s marine commandos (Marcos), and Jammu and Kashmir police.
Officials said that rescue teams of SDRF, NDRF and Marcos searched the turbid water of the river Jhelum 4-5 km downstream from Gandbal to Raj Bagh while divers went under water to look for any signs of the three missing persons.
The teams are looking for Farhan Waseem Parray, 7, Showkat Ahmad Sheikh, 40 and his son Haziq Showkat, 9.
Their families along with hundreds of people are waiting for any trace of their loved ones. “He has two daughters.
“He is a mason. We have nobody except him,” said Showkat Ahmad’s distraught mother, Fatima.
“My husband is also dead. My son had constructed this small house after taking a loan. How will I repay the loan? Who will take care of his daughters,” the septuagenarian said.
The officials are now expecting that the bodies of the missing might come up to the surface of the river on their own. The police stations along the Jhelum River have been alerted to look for floating bodies.