Beas tragedy: Chappals made the difference between life and death

Adilabad: Slippers played a crucial ‘role’ in the lives of two students of VNR Vignan Jyoti College.

Venkat Sai Srikar of Kagaznagar of Adilabad district luckily survived as he had stayed back in the bus as one of his slippers had got damaged while getting down from the bus.

He could not join his friends on the river bed to take photographs because of this.

Venkat would have been washed away if he had gone to the river bed along with his friends to take photographs. Instead Venkat sat in the bus repairing his damaged slippers.

Venkat said that his damaged slippers saved his life.

Srinidhi of Ithupalli village of Sulthanabad mandal in Karimnagar district was not so lucky. She died when she went to the river bed to collect the slippers which she had forgotten there while taking photographs a few minutes ago.

A. Purna Shekar of Nirmal town said that his classmate Srinidhi would have been alive if she hadn’t gone back to the river bed to collect her slippers which she had kept on a rock and had forgotten to pick up.

She had reached the shore safely from the river bed just a few minutes ago after taking photographs with her friends.

Shekar said that Srinidhi had told him that she was going to the river bed again to collect the slippers she had forgotten and would join him.

The incident took place when the second group went into the waters to take photographs.

Members of the first group helplessly watched as their friends were washed away by the powerful current of water.