Beas tragedy victim Sabir had IAF dreams, was working on a tiny helicopter

Hyderabad: Nineteen-year-old Mohammed Sabir Hussain wanted to become an Indian Air Force pilot.

He had been preparing to appear for defence tests. Sabir was also busy designing a tiny flying copter with his friend a few days before the excursion.

However, the Beas swallowed Sabir and his dreams on Sunday. After three days of search, on Wednesday his body was fished out by rescue teams.

“He was very sensitive and thoughtful. He used to talk about his dreams to fly a jet,” said Mohan Krishan, Sabir’s classmate and close friend, who is one of the survivors.

“We planned to build a small copter and were designing it before the excursion. As we had our exams, we could not complete the project, and we were thinking of working on the copter after the excursion,” said Krishna.

Sabir was sitting next to Krishna a few hours before they reached Thalot. When everyone got down, Krishna decided to take a nap.

“I wanted to sleep. I woke up hearing the noise and ran towards the river, where I saw the horrific scene,” said Krishna.

“He could draw brilliant cartoons,” said Praneeth Yamjala, his best friend.

Helicopters and planes could not land at the accident site due to adverse weather conditions.

Arrangements are being made to bring back the body of Sabir Hussain by road to Delhi from where it would be flown to Hyderabad on Thursday.

NDRF commanding officer Jaideep Singh said, “We are searching the entire stretch of 16 km of Beas from the accident spot to Pandoh Dam.

The bodies could be either trapped under boulders or sunk in the silt.”

The National Disaster Management Authority said it would deploy Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to search for the students.

NDMA vice-chairman Marri Shashidhar Reddy held a review meeting and said that expert divers from Kolkata, Guwahati and Patna would be reaching the site.

The defence ministry has also issued instructions for Navy personnel to join the search.