Five, including child, drown in Tungabhadra at Mantralaya

Raichur: Five persons, including a five-year-old boy, his father, two youths and a young woman, drowned in the Tungabhadra River at Mantralaya on the Raichur border on Saturday evening.

The deceased were identified as Vadla Satish, 35, from Hyderabad in Telangana; his son Yuvan Chandra, 5; Raghavendra, 28, a resident of Mantralaya; Vadla Dhanu, 23, from Yemmiganur in Kurnool district; and Sandhya, 22, from Anantapur.

The group had come to a relative’s house in Mantralaya to attend a Satyanarayana Puja scheduled for Sunday. They went to the river for a swim on Saturday evening when Yuvan Chandra reportedly started drowning. The others ventured into deeper waters to rescue him but were swept away.

Aparna, a young woman from Adoni, survived and immediately alerted local residents and family members.

Mantralaya police, led by DSP Bhargavi and circle inspector Dasthagiri, reached the spot along with fire and emergency services personnel and expert swimmers, and launched a rescue operation. Local fishermen also joined the intensive search using country boats.

During the operation, the body of a youth identified as Dhanush was recovered. The remaining bodies were found later and shifted to a government hospital for postmortem.

A case has been registered at Mantralaya police station.