Patna: A woman and her four children drowned in a waterlogged ‘chaur’ (water body) near the river bank under Govindganj police station area of Motihari in East Champaran district on Thursday evening, police said on Friday. The exact cause of the deaths is yet to be ascertained, and police are investigating whether it was an accident or there was any other reason behind the incident.The incident came to light when villagers spotted the bodies floating in the water around 11am on Friday.The deceased were identified as Sushila Devi (30), wife of Dharmendra Kumar, and her children Amrita Kumari (11), Avinash Kumar (8), Pammi Kumar (6) and Ravi Kumar (4).According to police, Sushila had gone to the farm fields with her four children, but they did not return. The family searched for them till late Thursday night but could not find them.When villagers reached near the ‘chaur’ around 11am on Friday, they spotted a woman’s body floating in the water. This triggered panic in the village. Villagers immediately raised an alarm and, with the help of local divers, recovered all five bodies one by one from the ‘chaur’.Sushila’s husband Dharmendra, a daily wage worker, said, “Yesterday at 5pm, my wife took all four children to cut grass, but she did not return. I frantically searched for her. Today, while we were again searching for them, we got information that bodies were floating in the ‘chaur’. When I reached there, I saw my wife and children. Villagers then pulled out all five bodies.”Locals said Sushila always took her children with her wherever she went. Dharmendra had returned home three months ago after working in Delhi as a construction worker. The family lived separately from Dharmendra’s parents.On getting information, Govindganj SHO Sachidanand Pandey reached the spot with a police team. All five bodies were sent to Motihari sub-divisional hospital for postmortem.The SHO said, “We received information that some people had drowned in the ‘chaur’. We reached the spot and, with the villagers’ help, recovered the bodies. Further investigation is underway.”
