Four members of a family drowned in Kotepally reservoir in Vikarabad district of Telangana on Monday, January 16, while they were on an outing for Sankranthi. The deceased were identified as Lokesh (30), Venkatesh (25), Jagadish (25) and Rajesh (24). According to reports, as Rajesh and Venkatesh started to drown while returning to the reservoir bank, the other two men tried to rescue them, and all of them ended up drowning. Police said it appeared that Rajesh and Venkatesh did not know how to swim. The four men were part of a 12-member group who had gone on a trip for the Sankranthi holidays.
Police, with the help of swimmers, pulled out the bodies and shifted them for autopsy. Based on a preliminary investigation, a senior police official said two of them were swimming while the other two were playing in the water for over one-and-half hours. They drowned when they were trying to come out of the reservoir, the official said. According to reports, two of the four men had entered the water and when they were drowning, the other two rushed to their rescue but they too drowned.
The victims were residents of Manneguda village of Pudur mandal, and were reportedly related to each other. They had visited Ananthagiri Hills, a tourist spot, and then gone swimming in the reservoir. The bodies of the four men were retrieved and an autopsy was conducted. A case was also registered.
In November last year, five students and their teachers drowned in Malkaram lake in the Medchal-Malkajgiri district. The teacher of a madrasa school from Hyderabad went on a small tour to Malkaram lake with six students, and the children drowned while playing in the lake.