Belgaum: Sadness descended on Gandigwad in Khanapur taluk when five cousins drowned in the village tank. The young boys, aged between 13 and 15, drowned while playing in the water and trying to catch fish in the tank on the outskirts of the village, on Thursday.

Bodies recovered

All the bodies have been recovered. They dead have been identified as Mahantesh Suresh Kolkar, Basu Mallappa Kolkar, Madiwal Prakash Kolkar, Fakeerappa Nagappa Kolkar and Ramesh Kolkar. Fakeerappa, the eldest, was 15 years old.

Sources said the boys used to frequent the tank to cool off. Many of the village children play in the water and test their fishing skills. Since the water-level in the tank had receded, even non-swimmers did not hesitate to get into the water.

On Thursday evening, as the five were playing, one of them saw a fish and the group managed to catch it. Soon, they spotted a bigger fish and started chasing it. As the fish darted away into shallow waters, the boys went after it and suddenly found themselves in deep waters where silt had been removed from the tank. None of them knew how to swim and they drowned.

Others had returned

The incident occurred between 6.30 p.m. and 7 p.m. Other boys from the same village who were playing in the water had returned by 6 p.m.

Later, a villager became suspicious on spotting a bicycle and some clothes on the tank bund and alerted the villagers. The bodies were recovered on Friday morning and were handed over to the relatives for cremation after a post-mortem.

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