BHOPAL: A middle-aged man and his teenage son died after drowning in the River Chambal in Madhya Pradesh’s Morena district on Sunday.
Devendra Singh Sikarwar (46), who was working in the journalism department of Jiwaji University, Gwalior, had accompanied his wife and teenage son Vanshu (15) to offer prayers at the famous Babu Maharaj Temple in the Karjoni area of Morena district on Sunday afternoon.
Before offering prayers, the trio from Gwalior went to Machela Ghat on the banks of the River Chambal, where teenage Vanshu started shooting a video with his mobile. Suddenly, he lost his balance and started drowning in the swollen river.
Knowing well that Vanshu did not know how to swim, father Devendra Singh Sikarwar jumped into the river to save him, but sadly, the father and son were both lost in the river.
In the subsequent search operations by the local police and the SDERF teams, both the bodies were retrieved from the river after five hours.
The tragic incident has exposed the state of security on the banks of swollen rivers and water bodies, even as large crowds are drawn to riverside religious places with the advent of the festive season amid heavy rains and flooding of major rivers.
Meanwhile, in western MP’s Ujjain district, lightning killed two men in Badhkumed village under Narwar police station area on Sunday afternoon.
The deceased have been identified as 70-year-old Mansingh Meena and 35-year-old labourer Harilal Rathore.
Meanwhile, heavy rains, which have, since the last few weeks, been lashing parts of eastern MP, consequently causing flooding in major rivers, are now shifting to western MP.
The Met Department sounded an orange alert on Monday for the continuance of moderate thunderstorms with lightning/moderate rain in western MP districts, including Rajgarh, Agar-Malwa, Ujjain, Neemuch, Mandsaur and Ratlam districts.
