KAKINADA: A birthday celebration took a tragic turn, when four youths drowned in Godavari River at Gopulanka village of Tallarevu mandal in Kakinada district on Saturday evening. The victims were identified as Hanumakonda Karthik (21), Maddena Phanindra Ganesh (21), Pendyala Balaji (21) and Thirumalarao Ravi Teja (21).
According to the Korangi sub-inspector S Ravi Kumar, a group of seven friends, hailing from Sajjapuram village in Tanuku mandal of West Godavari district embarked on a journey to visit Yanam on bikes to celebrate Karthik’s birthday. On the mid-way, they took a break at Tallarevu Gopulanka pushkar ghat and celebrated Karthik’s birthday. The excited Karthik entered the Godavari river to take a dip. However, he was unable to come out of the river, following which Ganesh, Balaji and Ravi Teja entered the water to rescue his drowning friend.
Unfortunately, all four youths drowned even though the other friends, Saladi Durga Mallesh, Neduru Bhanu Prasad and Kommireddy Chaitanya tried their best to rescue their fellow pals. After receiving information, Korangi police led by SI Ravi Kumar rushed to the spot and deployed a rescue operation. On Sunday, the police retrieved the bodies of the youth 600m away from the accident spot and shifted them for postmortem. A case has been registered and police are investigating.