Four youth, all students of a madrasa, met a watery grave when they went for a swim in the Phalguni river in Mangaluru district on Monday. Police are on the lookout for another student missing from the same spot.
Bantwal police said that they have recovered the bodies of Aslam (17), Mudasir (18), Rameez (17) and Sawad (18). Deep divers from Mangaluru have been engaged to find the other missing youth, Ajmal (17).
Police were informed about the incident after one of the parents found that their son was missing on Monday night, an official of the Bantwal Rural Police Station said. None of the parents were aware that the boys were going for a swim, the official added. Their clothes and mobile phones were found on the river bank.
Police reached the spot along with locals the same night. Expert swimmers were summoned to find the boys. Heavy rains coupled with thunderstorms in the area affected the rescue operations, the official said.
Police have registered a case of unnatural death.
In a similar incident, five persons drowned in a lake at Gangavathi in Koppal district of Karnataka on Monday.
According to reports, those who drowned were Raghavender (32) and Ashish (16), and three sisters — Pravallika (16), Pavithra (15), Pavani (14), all hailing from Hyderabad.
They had come for a pilgrimage on the occasion of Karthika Poornima at the Goddess Durga temple in Hemaguda in the district.
“They stepped into the water to take a bath. Soon they all started drowning. Raghavender, who was standing on the riverbank, noticed this and rushed to their rescue. But he too drowned in the process,” police told Telangana Today.