Tamil Nadu CM Edappadi K Palaniswam announces relief to boys' kin, orders probe

Chennai: The Tamil Nadu government on Saturday announced a relief of Rs 3 lakh to families of three students from the city who drowned in the Mulshi dam located around 50 km from Pune early this week.

Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami directed the officials to provide a relief of Rs 1 lakh each to the families of the deceased boys. The amount will be given from the Chief Minister's Public Relief Fund, he said in a statement. Ordering a probe into the incident involving the drowning of three students from the city in a dam in Pune, the Chief Minister said, "I have ordered the school education department to carry out a thorough investigation and take appropriate action."

As soon as he came to know about the sad news, he had directed the higher officials of the TN government to contact the Pune district administration immediately and speed up rescue measures, Mr Palaniswami added. He also expressed condolences to the bereaved family members.

The three, K. Danish Raja, G. Santhosh and S. Sarvannakumar (all aged 13), were students of ECS Matriculation School here and were part of a group of 20 students who attended a three-day summer camp near Mulshi's Katarkhadak village, along with their teachers.

The tragedy occurred on Wednesday when the students entered the backwater to swim. When the students came out of the water, the teachers realised that three students were missing. While the body of Raja was fished out by the local police with the help of villagers, those of the two others were retrieved by a team of 26 personnel from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF).