ROURKELA: Tragedy struck Salangabahal village in Sundargarh district on Wednesday morning when three minor girls drowned in the Sankh river while preparing for the Karma Puja festival.
The deceased were identified as Gitika Sahu (6), Sivika Sahu (7) and Shruti Kumari (9), all belonging to the non-tribal community of Salangabahal, around 42 km from Rourkela.
Raiboga police IIC Dibya Oram said the three girls, accompanied by a boy, had gone to the nearby river to bathe. Around 8.30 am, the girls reportedly slipped into deep water and drowned. The boy raised an alarm, following which villagers rushed to the spot and rescued the girls.
They were taken to the Community Health Centre (CHC) at Birmitrapur, where doctors declared them brought dead, Oram said.
According to villagers, the children had gone to the river in a cheerful mood to bathe and collect sand from the riverbank as part of preparations for the puja. The incident left the village shocked.
Karma Puja, predominantly celebrated by tribal communities, is associated with the worship of nature. As part of the preparations, a sand bed is created about a week before the festival, in which seven varieties of seeds are sown. The sprouted seedlings, known as ‘Jawa’, are worshipped on the day of the puja.
The festival is scheduled to be observed on September 22 this year. The deaths have cast a pall of gloom over the village and dampened the festive spirit.
Police have registered an unnatural death case. The bodies were being prepared for autopsy, they said.