A serious social issue of this sort surfaced after the death of 10 youths in Friday's Buriganga river tragedy.

To draw the young, organisers of such river cruises or picnics arrange forbidden amusements such as alcoholic beverages on board. They also arrange concerts where hired young girls perform dance sequences with contemporary Hindi music. These girls sometimes even engage in sexual activities in exchange for fees with young men on board.

These tales were revealed in an investigation while The Daily Star reporters visited different parts of the old city yesterday.

During mid April this year, Pankaz Babu, owner of a so-called musical band named 'Love Touch Band' of Shakhari Bazar, and Zamil from Kaltabazar allegedly organised the ill-fated river cruise of last Friday. Around 200 youngsters from the low-income section of the city paid Tk 350 each for the pleasure trip.

Local youths said Love Touch Band used to perform at various social programmes including marriage ceremonies and birthday parties. It recently gained popularity among the local youths for its young girls who sing and dance with contemporary Hindi music.

On Friday night, soon after a girl hired by the band performed the first dance, the youths aboard the launch split into two groups and clashed with each other over which group will have the girl with them.

The rowdy youths were allegedly intoxicated at the time. The situation turned worse when the security personnel on the vessel intervened after a windowpane of the vessel was damaged during the clash.

Upon receiving instruction from the vessel owner over the cellphone, the crew sailed the launch toward Sadarghat instead of its scheduled destination Farashganj.

As soon as the launch reached Sadarghat, a group of 20 to 25 lungi-clad men descended on the pleasure trippers. The identity of the attackers could not be ascertained till yesterday.

Family members of the deceased were in the dark about their loved ones' activities that night. They were not aware of who the organisers of the pleasure trip were.

Pankaz Babu, the owner of the band, allegedly duped beautiful young girls into the band promising to make them popular in the media. 13-year old Ruma, who drowned in the Buriganga that night, had been drawn to the band for the same reason.

"Your daughter will be a prominent singer in the country and you will not have to work anymore," Ruma's mother Lakshmi quoted Pankaz as saying to her. She also said Pankaj used to visit her house frequently. The last time he stopped by was on April 30.

"Since then, Ruma's way of talking and her attitude changed," she added.

Around 20 picnics or river cruises are organised every Friday from the Sadarghat terminal and in most cases, no permission is acquired from the authorities concerned.

The organisers of the trips usually rent long distance launches for Tk 12,000 to Tk 15,000, sources said.

Keraniganj police seized the launch on which the incident took place and recovered 60 used and unused condoms, 21 bed sheets, two hair bands and four empty bottles of alcoholic beverage from it.