NE NEWS SERVICE
PUNE, MAY 20
Nine persons including five women from a family and four school students drowned in dam waters in two separate incidents in Pune district in Maharashtra on Thursday, police said. Five women drowned in the backwater of the Bhatghar dam in Bhor taluk while four Class 10 students drowned in Chasakman reservoir in Khed taluk, officials said.
In the first incident, the victim women, who were visiting Naregaon village in the district to attend a family function, went to the nearby Bhatghar dam to click pictures in the evening and entered the water, said an official of Rajgad police station.
When they began to drown, a nine-year-old girl who was with them ran away and alerted others, but the women could not be saved, the official said. All the bodies were fished out. The deceased identified were Khushboo Rajput (19), Manisha Rajput (20), Chandani Rajput (21), Poonam Rajput (22) and Monika Chavan (23). All of them were married.
In a separate incident, four students — two boys and two girls — from Sahyadri residential school, located near Chasakman dam in Khed taluk, drowned in the backwater of the dam, police said. They were part of a group of teachers and students from the school who were visiting the spot for bathing, said a local official.
When some of the students were swept away in the water, teachers managed to rescue a few of them. But four of them, all around 15 years old, drowned, he said. All four bodies have been fished out, officials said, adding that further probe was on.
The deceased students were identified as Ritin Didi, Navya Bhosale, Parikshit Agrawal and Tanishka Desai.
Further investigations are on.
