18 members of the family had travelled to Basara to perform a religious ritual and take a sacred dip in the river.
Adilabad:: Three brothers and two of their cousins from an extended family from Hyderabad drowned while taking a holy dip in the Godavari river at Basar in the Nirmal district on Sunday afternoon. They had come for a darshan at the Goddess Saraswati temple at Basar.
The deceased were identified as the brothers Rakesh Rathod, 20, Madan, 18, and Bharath, 16, and their cousins Vinod, 19, and Hruthik, 22, from Chinthal and Dilshuknagar in Hyderabad. The bodies were shifted to the government hospital at Bhaisna for the post-mortem.
According to sources, 18 persons from three families — who were natives of Rajasthan, who are settled in Hyderabad — had gone to Basar for the darshan of Goddess Saraswati. A group of youth went in a boat to a sandbar in the river where they got down to take the holy dip.
However, two of them accidentally entered deeper waters and drowned. Three others who attempted to rescue them also drowned. Sources said local boatmen tried to help the struggling youths but in vain.
It was heartbreaking to see Sonu, the mother of Rakesh Rathod, Madan, and Bharath, crying inconsolably after the incident. Their parents had expected them to go to another spot for the holy dip.
According to eyewitnesses, the youth boarded the boat, cheering and waving to their family members when the boat was going into the deep waters of the Godavari.
The boat operator reportedly told the youth that he would come back after half an hour to pick them up after dropping them at the sandbar, where they were supposed to take the holy dip in the middle of the river Godavari at Basar.
District collector Abhilasha Abhinav expressed shock at the incident. She said travelling to the sandbar was banned and devotees should take a holy dip in the designated places near the ghats.
However, there are no measures in place to prevent boatmen from taking unwary pilgrims to the middle of the river. There are also no safety and security measures at the ghats where hundreds of devotees throng every day to take a holy dip. Besides, the ghats are slippery. Bhainsa ASP Avinash Kumar and Mudhole CI Mallesh and SI Srinivas visited the ghats and supervised the situation.
