Chhath: Five more drown in Jharkhand, 11 dead in two days

Ranchi, Oct 27 (PTI) Five more children drowned at various places in Jharkhand, taking the toll to 11 in two days, mostly during the Chhath festival, police said on Monday.

A teenage boy and two men also went missing in waterbodies on Monday.

Five children died in the state’s Hazaribag, Garhwa and Simdega districts, police said. Six others had drowned in Simdega and Palamu districts on Sunday.

Two girls - Gungun Kumari (11) and Rupa Tiwari (12) - drowned in a pond in Bela village in Keredari police station area of Hazaribag during Chhath Puja on Sunday evening, police said.

The bodies were sent for the post-mortem examination.

In Garhwa, 13-year-old Rahul Kumar drowned in the Danro river under Sadar police station limits while taking a bath on Monday afternoon, police said.

Sadar police station in-charge Sunil Tiwari said that Kumar went into deep water while taking a bath in the river and drowned.

Locals brought him out of the water and took him to the Sadar hospital where the doctor declared him brought dead.

A two-and-a-half-year-old girl drowned in a bucket full of water at Mayangsor village under Bano police station limits in Simdega district on Monday, a police official said.

The child and her grandmother were at home when the incident happened.

The grandmother went to another room, but when she returned, she found the child drowned in the bucket, the official added.

A minor boy drowned in the Subernarekha River near Saherbera under Chandil police station limits of Seraikela-Kharsawan district on Monday evening after offering evening arghya as part of the Chhath puja rituals, police said.

Chandil Police Station Officer-in-Charge Dilshan Birua told PTI that 14-year-old Aryan Yadav had entered the danger zone of the river and shouted for help while drowning.

“Following that, Pratik Kumar Yadav (19) and Sanjay Singh (45) jumped into the river to rescue him. The NDRF team and local divers managed to recover the body of the boy while the search for the two men will resume on Tuesday morning,” said the police officer.

In Palamu, a 16-year-old boy went missing after jumping into a canal on Monday, an official said.

The incident happened near Chaura bridge in Bishnupur village under Hussainabad police station limits.

Hussainabad Circle Officer Pankaj Kumar, Deori OP police, and the Hussainabad police team rushed to the spot and initiated rescue operations.

Kumar said the boy had come to his maternal grandparents' home in Fatimachak village in the Hussainabad area.

Three children drowned in a pond in Simdega, and three others died the same way in Palamau district on Sunday evening. PTI SAN ANB SOM NN