Srinagar, India

Six peopl,e including four children, died while six were rescued alive after a boat capsized in river Jhelum at Ganderbal area of Batwara in Srinagar. Authorities said that around 15 people were on the boat early Tuesday morning. Most of them were school-going children. Authorities are still carrying out rescue operations as three people are still said to be missing. 

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NDRF, SDRF and the Indian Army are carrying out a massive rescue operation in Srinagar's river Jhelum after a boat mostly carrying school children capsized. The whole area of Ganderbal was in shock and trauma after the news spread. Thousands of people gathered around the river Jhelum while the rescue operation was on. 

''Early morning today around 7:45am, an unfortunate incident took place in the river Jhelum. We are ascertaining the number of people that were on the boat. As of now, we have been told that 15 people were on this boat, among them were 7 minors and 8 adults. We have been carrying out rescue operations since this morning and so far we have rescued 12 people so far out of which 6 have succumbed while six are alive. We are looking for three missing people at the moment which includes 2 children and one adult. All the teams are working together to make sure the rescue operation continues,'' said Bilal Mohiuddin, DC Srinagar. 

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Indian Army's Marine commandos have also been pushed to carry out the rescue operation in the area. The authorities have put rescue teams for around ten kms of a stretch of river Jhelum. 

For the ones who are still missing, we have currently engaged four teams of NDRF, two teams of SDRF, River Police teams, and a team of MARCOS. We will intensify the search till we find the missing,'' said Ashish Mishra, SSP Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir Police. 

The locals of the area blamed the government saying the under-construction bridge has not been completed for around 14 years. The locals say that school-going children have to take a boat as the bridge has not been completed by the authorities. 

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Kashmir Valley has witnessed heavy rains and snow in the last three days and that is one of the reasons that the level of water in river Jhelum has increased.