Five engineering students drown in Telangana reservoir while taking ‘selfies’

Five students, including two girls, of an engineering college on Saturday drowned in a reservoir near here, police said.

Craze for taking selfie on mobile phone proved fatal for five engineering students, including two girls, who drowned in a reservoir in Warangal district of Telangana on Saturday.

The deaths occured when one of the girls fell into the lake while trying to take a selfie. Four others died while trying to save her. (Representative photo)

The deceased have been identified as Patti Sravya Reddy, Pollineni Vinootn, Karne Sivasai, P Sivasaikrishna and Sagar Reddy. The students were from Vagdevi Engineering College, Warangal, where they were pursuing third year engineering in computer science.

According to the police, the six students went to Dharmasagar reservoir, a popular tourist attraction in the district in the morning for an outing. One of the girls, Ramya Pratyusha, tried to take a selfie along with the others, standing on a rock in the middle of the water body. However, the rock was slippery and she fell into the water.

In order to save her, the other students got into the water, one after the other. While Pratyusha managed get back to the shore, the others drowned.

“Unfortunately, the water level in the reservoir was too high and none of them had gauged the depth of the water. As a result, they drowned,” Dharmasagar Circle Inspector Rajaiah said.

Locals who noticed the mishap alerted the police, who reached the spot along with swimmers. After searching for a couple of hours, they brought out the bodies.