Four drown while bathing in river in Gujarat

Three women and a 12-year-old boy drowned while taking a bath in a river in Gujarat's Anand district on Tuesday, police said.

The victims, all hailing from the state's Kheda district, had come to Pratappura village here to attend a wedding, an official at Khambholaj police station said.

On Tuesday morning, when the boy went to take bath in the Mahisagar river, he slipped in a pit dug in the river bed by sand miners and started drowning, he said.

Four women who had also entered the river for a bath tried the save the boy, but in the process they, too, started drowning, he said.

On hearing their screams, some locals rushed there and managed to rescue one of the women while the others drowned, the official said.

The four bodies were later fished out and sent for post mortem, he added.