Six students drown during Ganesh immersion in Sangareddy

Six students of Sirisha Memorial Charitable Trust died when they accidentally fell into a pond while immersing a Ganesh idol near Peddakanjarla village in Sangareddy district on Wednesday evening.

The incident took place around 7 pm when a group of eight people went to a pond located three kilometers from their shelter on the outskirts of the village to take a bath in Ganesh.

The six deceased have been identified as Siddharth, a Class X student, Narasimha Raju, a second year B.Tech student, Sumanth Reddy and Ganesh, both second year Polytechnic students, Uday Kiran, a third year Polytechnic student, and Shyam Kumar alias Shyam, a first year Polytechnic student.

The six people were rushed to Prachin Global Hospital in Patancheru, where doctors declared them dead.

The students were residents of the Sirish Memorial Charitable Trust, a home for homeless and orphans, at Shivanagar Junction in Peddakanjarla. According to sources, the trust has about 70 students from first grade to polytechnic and undergraduate level, with admission limited to orphans.

Patancheru MP Gudem Mahipal Reddy visited the hospital and directed officials to complete the post-mortem by 10 am on Thursday and make arrangements to transport the bodies to their hometowns in ambulances. He said he organized the ambulances using his own funds.

According to the MLA, two of the deceased were from Vijayawada, two from Warangal and two from Kukatpally. He said the foundation has been conducting Ganesh immersions at the same location for the past 15 years.