Our Bureau/

Careless of guardians, who left their teenagers to immerse the idol of Lord Ganesha in water, had little known that tragedy was store for them.

They remained busy till last late night to fish out the bodies of 9 teenaged who earlier drowned during immersion of the Ganesha idols. The wailing of mothers and family members of the teenagers further charged the atmosphere with emotion and make even hard hearted people move to pity at Korchakka, a sleepy and remote village in Naugachia  today.

One of the victim.

Niranjan Yadav (14), son of Sivnandan Yadav, Sourav Kumar (15), son of Sanjay Singh, Chotu Kumar (15) & Bittu (12),son of Bibeka Singh,  Vikash Kumar (13),son of Vijay Ram, Rahul Kumar (12), son of Babloo Singh,  Ankesh Kumar (12), son of Umesh Kumar, Saurabh Kumar-II (13), son of Etwari Sha and Nanku Kumar (14), son of Mukund Sha, all are native of Korchakka village, some 4 km from the pond where they drowned yesterday. The local people from the pond saved life of one boy during the time of the incident last afternoon.

Irate villagers  however blocked NH-31 near Marwa village this morning , demanding immediate compensation for the next of kin of the victims over more than 3 hours. Sub divisional officer (SDO),  Aditya Prakesh  however managed to remove the blockade while  assuring the compensation of Rs 4 lakh each to the next kin of the deceased by this evening.

Family members morning the deaths.

Sources from the village said that the boys went to the pond for immersion of the idol of Lord Ganesha after their family members conducted pujas at their houses in the village. “ The incident happened when the boys started playing with coconuts which earlier were  immersed along with the idols into the water of the pond. Since there was not a single senior family members of any of the boys, they became careless which caused the incident,” said a cop at Bihpur PS, Korchakka village is falling under the jurisdiction of Bihpur PS.

Just before Ganesha puja festival, the SDO conducted  a meeting of peace committee in which it was instructed that not a single children should allow to immersion places. But villagers pointed out that during the meeting the SDO also assured to arrange proper security at such points. “But there was not a single police or any administrative people to check the boys who travelled more than 4 Km from their village to the pond to immerse the idols,” the villager alleged.

An unconscious mother after her son died in the mishap.

Superintendent of police, Naugachia, Pankaj Sinha said all the bodies had been recovered and the rescue operation called off in last late night. The bodies were fished out by divers, who were requisitioned from adjoining Khagaria district.

Some residents at Naugachia alleged that the incident was the result of negligence by parts of concerned government machineries. “There were some previous incidents of drowning into water during the time immersion of idols, there should be proper arrangements for such immersion,” they pointed out.