Kolkata, Jan 5 (IANS) The 17 missing picnickers in Sunday’s boat accident on Rupnarayan river in East Midnapore district still remained untraced Tuesday, despite officials saying search operations had been intensified. The victims’ weeping relatives protested and put up road blocks in Kolkata.
However, the administration said they had shifted focus to surface operations from the underwater hunt.

“So far, not a single body has been fished out of the river,” East Midnapore District Magistrate Choten Lama said, even as hopes of finding any of the missing people, including eight children, alive looked remote.

The victims were part of a 61-member picnic party frm Ultandanga in north Kolkata who had gone to Kolaghat. The incident occurred when a boat carrying 37 picnickers taking a joyride capsized in the river around 3 pm Sunday. Twenty of those who fell into the river were either rescued by locals or swam ashore.

“We are continuously carrying out search operation in the river. We already searched the underwater and found no body there. So now we have shifted our focus on surface areas and the corners where the bodies might get stuck during the time of low tide,” East Midnapore Superintendent of Police Bastab Baidya told IANS.

“We’ve also set up about six watch points at different points to monitor the floating objects in the river,” he said, adding a hovercraft and few speed boats were participating in the search.

“This apart, we have divers who are tirelessly trying to search out the bodies of the picnickers,” he said.

Anxious relatives of the missing picnickers staged road blockades for the second day Tuesday in parts of northern Kolkata protesting against the administration’s inability to find any of those missing, either dead or alive.

“More than two days have passed but they (authorities) are yet to find any of my two children. What are they doing?” said a middle aged man.

Following the boat tragedy, the state government has temporarily banned boat rides on the Rupnarayan river.