5 youths of a family drown in Dindi project

• They came to attend grandpa’s death ceremony
• One manages to come out of water safely
• Three were residents of Hyderabad

Nalgonda: Five youths who came to attend their grandfather’s death ceremony on Sunday went for a swim in the Dindi project near the Srisailam-Hyderabad highway and drowned on Monday morning. A youth managed to survive as he was the last to get into the water.

The backwaters of the reservoir had been identified as dangerous. Unaware of this, D Jyostna(23), D Devamani (14), D Harshvardhan Reddy (27), D Praneet Reddy (25), Anish Reddy (28) and Aravind Reddy tried to get into the reservoir holding their hands.

They got drowned as the water level was deep because of last year’s illegal sand-mining at the spot, the project officials said later. Aravind, who was the last in the line of six, managed to break free as he saw others drowning.

The victims had come to Dindi to attend the obsequies of Malla Reddy, who died on Saturday evening. They went for a swim only to meet with a watery grave at around 8.30 am. Their bodies were retrieved by local fishermen around noon. The bodies were sent to the government hospital at Devarakonda, for post-mortem. Nalgonda Collector Chiranjeevulu and local MP Gutha Sukhender Reddy, Devarakonda MLA Ravindra Kumar visited the hospital and consoled the bereaved families. Tahsildar Govardhan Naik and Chandampet SI Nagabushan Rao visited the spot.

Harshvardhan Reddy was working in a private company. He and his brother, Praneet Reddy, who completed MSc, were staying in Vanasthalipuram in Hyderabad. Anish Reddy of Wanaparthi was in BTech final year in a private engineering college in Warangal. Jyotsna of Dindi was a student of B Tech final in a private engineering college in Hyderabad. Her sister Devamani was a ninth class student in Model School, Dindi.

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao expressed deep grief over the death of 5 promising young people.