"We have pulled out seven bodies till 5:30am and wrapped up the rescue work at 10:00am as no one else was reported missing," said Selim Newaj Bhuiyan, deputy director of Fire Service and Civil Defence (Dhaka division).

Shortly after the fire brigade divers had packed up, locals recovered two more bodies. Earlier in the morning they hauled another one out of the water.

The government has formed a four-member probe committee. The team headed by a home ministry joint secretary has been given 48 hours to report back on the clashes between two groups of picnickers and Ansars on board a launch at the Sadarghat terminal.

The ones recovered yesterday were identified as Shahiduddin, 22, a mineral water vendor, Priyotosh Mondal, 20, vocalist of musical band Love Touch, Suchana Akhter Ruma, 13, of Gandaria, Liton, 22, of Sutrapur, and Indranath Sur, 40. The name of another one fished out of the river near Champatuly at 4:30pm could not yet be known.

Locals recovered the body of Ruma from the water near Farashganj Bridge at 7:00am while that of Indranath Sur was found at 4:00pm after a frantic search by his relatives.

Meanwhile, the body that remained unidentified after recovery on Friday night was known to be of Ganesh Rajbhor, 22, a gardener from Dhanmondi.

"Primarily, no mark of torture was found on the bodies. Viscera reports should confirm if they had taken alcohol or not," said the doctor who performed autopsies on the bodies.

Relatives of the dead complained that the victims would not have jumped off the launch had the Ansars, launch crew and terminal staff not been so hard on them.

Locals and terminal staff alleged that anti-social activities in the name of pleasure trip take place in the Buriganga all too often but the law enforcement agencies do not bother to check the rowdiness.

"The culprits could have been handed over to the police or punished in accordance with law. But instead the Ansars charged baton and panicked the picnickers into diving into the river," said Tajuddin, uncle of Shahiduddin, one of the casualties.

The south Keraniganj police seized the launch "MV-New Sun-4" yesterday morning and detained Jewel, a tea vendor. The local police have been on duty at the terminal. They were being assisted by a team from Dhaka Metropolitan Police.

Sanchita, a relation of one victim, yesterday filed a case with South Keraniganj Police Station in connection with the Friday night's brawl and Ansar action.

Meanwhile, the bodies of four students who went missing in the Padma at Louhojang Friday afternoon were recovered yesterday.

They are Shakhawat Hossain Linkon, a first-year student of business administration at East-West University, Morshed Khan and Saiful Islam of Nazrul Islam College, and Fazlul Karim Evan of marketing department at Dhaka University.