A fishing trip ended in tragedy when two men drowned in the Arkavati at Kanakapura on Sunday around 8.30 a.m.
It took nearly eight hours for the Fire and Emergency Services personnel and the police to recover their bodies.
Shivaraj and Santhosh—both in their 30s and residents of Yediyur—along with their friends Nagaraj, Raghu and Nataraj left Bengaluru around 7 a.m. to fish along the banks of the Arkavati at Kanakapura.
While their friends remained on the shore, Shivaraj and Santhosh decided to go for a swim.
However the current was stronger than they had anticipated and there were soon struggling to stay afloat, his friends told the police.
Nataraj, Raghu and Nagaraj did not know how to swim, and with no passersby in site they ran to the nearest police station for help.
“A rescue team rushed to the spot, but by then it was too late,” said a police officer. A team of 15 rescue members were pressed into service to dredge the river.
Shivaraj, a painter, was newly married having tied the knot barely four months. Santhosh was a welder by profession.
