1 more body found after salvage operations end

One more body was recovered by local fishermen about two hours after the five-day rescue operation of the Bhola launch capsize ended yesterday.
Lalmohon Upazila Nirbahi Officer Babar Ali Mir declared the end of the rescue operation around 11:00am. He said officials and divers of both the rescue ships -- Rustam and Hamza - -ensured that no more body was inside the capsized vessel.
Our Patuakhali correspondent reports: the fishermen recovered the body floating on the Tentulia river about one kilometre to the north of the accident site around 1:00pm. They handed it over to police.
Later, relatives received the body by identifying the victim as Yaqub, 10, son of Kalu Mian of Cachra village under Tojumoddin upazila in Bhola. The death toll now rose to 85.
Meanwhile, both the rescue ships left the site at noon. They had failed to lift the Coco-4 fully from under water, as the weight of the launch was far beyond the capacity of the salvage vessels.
The launch again drowned as salvage vessels unchained it.
Hamza started the operation Sunday noon to rescue Coco-4, a double-decker launch that sank Thursday last around 11:00pm.
Later another salvage ship Rustam, which reached the spot in Lalmohon of Bhola at about 11:00pm on Tuesday, joined the operation Wednesday morning and recovered six more bodies from inside the launch on the day.
However, after a thorough search, the officials of the salvage ships reported to the district administration.
When contacted Deputy Commissioner of Bhola Mesbahul Islam told The Daily Star that they had conducted the rescue operation only for missing passengers and launch lifting was not their job.
MISSING PERSONS
Babar Ali, UNO of Lalmohon, however said two or three passengers still might be missing though the relatives could not say for sure whether they were boarding the launch.
But Students' Forum, a local student group that prepared a list of the missing, claimed that at least 75 passengers, who were on board, were still missing.
Engineer Abdul Halim, president of the forum, said they had prepared the list by setting up a camp on the riverbank where relatives of missing people recorded name of missing persons.
THREE ARRESTED
Meanwhile, Lalmohon police on Wednesday arrested three persons in connection with the launch accident.
The arrestees are Jahangir, 22, Rafiq, 25 and Jalil, 24, all of Lalmohon upazila.
Jahangir is a ghat labourer of Lalmohon Launch ghat. Police sent him to court on the day while Rafiq and Jalil yesterday.
Further details of the arrest could not be known immediately.
COMPENSATION
Bangladesh Inland Waterways (passenger carriers) Association yesterday decided to increase the amount of compensation for the capsize victims by 50 percent.
Earlier, the grant was of Tk 20,000 for a victim's family and Tk 30,000 for the family with more than one victim. It would be now Tk 30,000 and Tk 45,000 respectively.
The decision was taken yesterday at the board meeting of a trust fund of launch owners.