Karimnagar: Holi celebrations for three teenagers ended in a tragedy after they drowned in a water pit in the downstream of Lower Manair Dam in the outskirts of Karimnagar town on Tuesday.
After celebrating holi, the three – Veeranjaneyulu (16), Santhosh (13) and Anil (14) – went to the Manair river to take a bath in the afternoon. They got into a water pit dug as part of the Manair River Front project and drowned as they did not know swimming.
Natives of Chimakurthi mandal in Ongole of Andhra Pradesh, the families of the three had migrated to Karimnagar to work as daily wage labourers and were staying in the Housing Board Colony.
The police have retrieved bodies from the pit. Meanwhile, BC Welfare and Civil Supplies Minister Gangula Kamalakar said Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao had announced an ex gratia of Rs 3 lakh each to the kin of the deceased. Kamalakar said he would give Rs 2 lakh each to kin as well.