Vadodara: Three paper boats floating on a pond turned into a heart-breaking clue for a family desperately searching for three sisters who had gone missing on Sunday evening.The three girls, aged 13, 11 and 8, had been playing with the paper boats near the pond when they slipped into deep water and drowned.The three sisters — Priya, 13, Isha, 11, and Rina, 8 — were the daughters of Ashwin Baraiya, a farm labourer from Mosam Faliya in Shakarpur village. They had gone to a pond in the Khadau Seema area in the evening to relieve themselves. They were later playing with paper boats near the water when tragedy struck.When the girls did not return, family members and villagers began searching the area. Two hours later, the sight of paper boats floating on the pond raised fears that the sisters had fallen into the water.A local swimmer, Chirag, entered the pond at around 6pm and searched the deeper portions. After considerable effort, he recovered the bodies of the three sisters.The girls were taken to a govt hospital in an ambulance, where doctors declared all three dead and began procedures for postmortems.Locals said the sisters may have been playing with the paper boats near the pond when they slipped into deep water, apparently failing to the gauge the depth.Shakarpur was plunged into mourning. The funeral processions of the three sisters were taken out together on Monday, leaving the village devastated by the loss.
