Six young boys, all of them friends and neighbours living on the same street in Telangana’s Sircilla, went swimming in the Manair river on Monday, November 15 afternoon. However, the casual outing soon turned tragic, as the boys drowned in the river after misestimating the depth of the water. While five bodies have been retrieved from the river and identified so far, the search for the sixth boy, Manoj, an intermediate student, continued on Tuesday. 

Sircilla Rural Police Circle Inspector B Upender told TNM that the boys, aged between 11 to 16 years, went for a dip in the river at a check dam near Nehrunagar in Sircilla town outskirts around 2 pm on Monday. “Firstly, the boys couldn’t swim. Secondly, it is difficult to gauge the depth of the water there, so they mistakenly ended up moving to a spot where the water was 15 to 18 metres deep,” the CI said. While the body of a boy named Ganesh was found on Monday itself, four more bodies — of Kranthi Kiran, Rakesh, Venkata Sai and Ajay — were retrieved on Tuesday. 

“As it rained on Monday night, we were unable to continue the search into the night, which is why it took longer to retrieve the other four bodies,” the CI said. “The team engaged in the search operation since yesterday has already completely searched the area. Now, NDRF (National Disaster Response Force) personnel are using their methods, but we are yet to find Manoj’s body,” he added. 

In another similar incident in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh, three of 10 students of ITI (Industrial Training Institute), who went swimming in the Krishna river nearThotlavalluru, drowned on Monday, police said. The deceased were identified as G Nagaraju (19), G Pawan (18) and Narendra (18), all belonging to Thotlavalluru village. Their bodies were recovered, and a case was registered, police added.

(With PTI inputs)