Five youths died by drowning in a canal in Uttar Pradesh’s Kasganj, police said on Saturday.
The deceased were identified as Shahid, Abhishek, Salman, Asif, and Jahid, aged between 16 and 22, all residents of Etah district.
According to the police, the incident happened when a group of nine youths entered the Hazara canal in the Nadrai area of the district on Friday for a bath. However, they slipped into deep water and started drowning due to the strong current.
Four of them were able to come out of the water, but others could not.
Hearing their screams, locals reached the spot and informed the police.
Later on, local police, along with the SDRF teams, started the rescue operation and fetched out two bodies on Friday only.On Saturday, rescue operations were relaunched, and three more dead bodies were fetched out and sent for post-mortem.
SHO Kotwali Ramvakeel Singh confirmed the incident on Saturday. The police were further looking into the incident.