Five boys met a tragic end when they drowned in the Godavari during the Mahasivaratri celebrations at Chintiryala village in Aswapuram mandal on Sunday. The incident sparked angry protests from the relatives of the boys who charged the executive committee of a local Siva temple with failing to take safety precautions on the shores of the Godavari.
The deceased were identified as R. Chanti, 16, Md. Saleem, 13, M. Surya Teja, 10, Md. Tajuddin, 9, and K. Pavan, 12. Chanti was an Intermediate first year student, while the rest were all school students and belonged to poor families of Chintiryala colony.
Sources said that the boys gathered on the banks of the Godavari where Sivaratri festivities were under way in a nearby temple in the morning. They ventured into the river in the afternoon to take a bath and drowned. The villagers fished out the bodies of all the boys. As the tragic news spread, the relatives of the victims thronged the site of the incident. The tragedy plunged the entire village into grief.
Tension gripped the place when a section of the aggrieved family members of the deceased staged a protest demonstration demanding action against the staff concerned for their alleged negligence in making safety arrangements on the banks of the Godavari for the festival. Meanwhile, Minister for Horticulture R Venkat Reddy announced Rs 50,000 ex gratia to each of the bereaved families. Collector Siddharth Jain said an interim relief of Rs 25,000 each will be immediately disbursed to the families of the five boys.
Rajahmundry Staff Reporter writes: Meanwhile, in Maredumilli in East Godavari district, three engineering students of Sri Prakash Engineering College met a watery grave on Sunday when they reached this picnic spot on the occasion of Mahasivaratri.
3 engg. students meet watery grave
According to Maredumilli SI Koteswara Rao, ten students of the college who are in second year engineering came to Pamuleru river in the morning and went for a swim around 1 p.m.
When one of the students slipped into the river, three others tried to save him and all the three drowned one after the other. The deceased were identified as Boddu Manikanta (19) of Rajanagaram, Mutyala Prasad (19) of Dosakayalapalli and Padamata Ganesh (19) of Devarapalli in West Godavari. All the bodies were traced and handed over to their parents in the evening.
