Bodies of 4 engineering students recovered

Vijayawada: Bodies of the four engineering students, who drowned in River Krishna at Pavitra Sangamam on Saturday, were retrieved by the searching teams on Sunday. 

Four students studying B Tech second year at MIC college, Kanchikacherla, were drowned in gushing waters of Krishna on Saturday evening. After more than 12 hours the bodies surfaced in the river between 7 and 10 am on Sunday.

The students were identified as P Raj Kumar, Kotha peta, Vijayawada, Narsing Srinath of Tiruvuru, Krishna district, K Chaitanya Reddy of Reddygudem, Krishna district and Karukutla Praveen of Vatticherukuru mandal of Guntur district. 

After the summer vacation, they returned to Kanchikacherla to rejoin the college.  About 90 personnel belonging to National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), State Disaster Response, Fire services (SDRFS), expert swimmers and local fishermen continued search from 4.30 pm on Saturday to late night. Again, they began search in the early morning on Sunday.

The rescue teams have fished out the bodies and later shifted them to the New Government General Hospital for post-mortem. Karukutla Suresh and Sujata, parents of Praveen, Guntur district, could not control their emotions at the New GGH after seeing the body of their son. Suresh is a daily wage worker working in Guntur chili yard. Their second son Naveen is studying 10th class. 

The four students belong to poor and middle class families.  Narsing Srinath was the son of a lorry driver Krishna. With a lot of hope, Krishna had admitted Srinath at MIC last year. Unfortunately, he drowned in Krishna river on Sunday. Another victim Rajkumar was from Vijayawada. His father Ravindranath is a chemist. Raj Kumar is the twin brother Ramkumar.

Tearful farewell was given to the four students. Minister for Water Resources Devineni Uma Maheswara Rao announced that the government would pay compensation of Rs 5 lakh to kin of the each of the family of the deceased. He announced that the college management would also pay compensation to the kin of the victims.