Six of family drown in Ganga in Patna

Jitendra K Shrivastava

Tribune News Service

Patna, September 14

Six members of a family drowned in the Ganga here as they had gone for bathing. Four of them were fished out on Thursday morning.

A team of State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) has been trying to recover the two other bodies.

Along with the rescue team, the district administration has also been camping at Marachi in Mokama.

Pawan Singh’s family is said to have gone for bathing in the Ganga where a child in the family drowned. In order to save the child the others drowned one after the other.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar expressed grief over the incident and also spoke to the family. Nitish directed Patna district magistrate Sanjay Aggrawal to take appropriate action and distribute the compensation. The state disaster management department will give a compensation of Rs 4 lakh each to the next of kin.

Local resident Anirudh Singh said, “On the occasion of the bathing festival, six members of Pankaj Singh’s family went for bathing. One of the members drowned; then, others plunged in to the river one after the other. Eventually, all six drowned.”