Four of family jump into dam backwaters in Mulshi to save woman, all drown

PUNE Five members of a family drowned in the backwaters of a dam in Kolvan village in Mulshi, according to the local police.

The incident took place on Sunday at around 10:30 am.

The deceased have been identified as Pournima Ashok Mahanti (36), Shankar Dashrath Laygude (38), Arpita Mahanti (21), Ankita Mahanti (13) and Rajashree Laygude (10), according to the police.

The couple is survived by three other daughters who were in their house which is close to the river bank.

Pournima was washing clothes in the backwaters when she drowned. “One of the daughters saw the woman drown and three of her sisters jump after her and she told her father who later jumped in the water to save them,” according to the station house officer of Paud police station.

“This was not the first marriage of either the woman or the man. Therefore, her legal name and that of two of her daughters is still related to her previous husband who died earlier,” said an official of Paud police station.

The bodies were pulled out by the locals along with the police within a couple of hours of the incident and sent to Paud government hospital for post-mortem.

The deaths were recorded at the Paud police station of Pune rural police.