Daltonganj: Six people, including five children and teenagers, drowned in separate incidents in Palamu district during Karam puja immersion rituals on Wednesday.Five of the victims drowned in Koyel river under Chainpur police station limits, while a 15-year-old girl lost her life in Jinjoi river in Paton area. The victims were aged between 8 and 22 years.Chainpur police station officer in-charge Lalji said, the five victims from Bokeeya village had gone to Koyel river to immerse the Karma dali. “After the ritual, they entered the river to bathe and tried to cross to the other side when they were swept away by the current,” he said.The victims were identified as Amit Kumar Thakur, 22, Nitish Kumar Singh, 19, Vishal Paswan, 16, Raja Singh, 12, and Hemant Kumar Singh, 8. Bodies of the first four were recovered and taken to Medinirai Medical College and Hospital, where doctors declared them dead on arrival. Hemant’s body had not been recovered till the time of filing this report.In the other incident, Simpi Kumari, 15, drowned in the Jinjoi at Nani Jhariya village while immersing the Karma dali. Police said she slipped into the river during the ritual and could not be rescued.Postmortems were conducted at MMCH. Civil surgeon Dr Anil Kumar Srivastava said two doctors were deputed for the autopsies due to the number of fatalities.Local BJP MLA Alok Kumar Chourasia visited the hospital and met the bereaved families. Palamu district disaster management nodal officer Kundan Kumar said the state govt provides an ex gratia of Rs 4 lakh in drowning cases, subject to completion of formalities, including the postmortem report.SDPO Sadar Rajesh Yadav said the incidents could have been avoided with greater caution around rivers during immersion ceremonies.
