Bijapur girls drown in pit in Maharashtra

Three teenage girls who went to fetch water from River Bhima at Gubbewad, a border village in Bijapur district, drowned in a pit dug on the river bank on Maharashtra side on Friday.

The deceased have been identified as Bhagyasri, 12, Mahananda, 14, and Bhagyasri, 12, all residents of Gubbewad village in Indi taluk. The pit is in Akkalakot taluk of Maharashtra.

Police sources said the girls along with four others had gone to the river to take bath and also to fetch water.

However, as there was no water on the Karnataka side of the river, they went a little further and across the river to the Maharashtra side and found a pit filled with water. The pit was reportedly dug by the sand mafia in that state.

Oblivious of the depth, they entered the pit. As the pit was deep and the girls didn’t know swimming, they all drowned.

The incident became complicated for the police as the victims were from Karnataka but the place of the incident was in Maharashtra.

The Indi DySP, who rushed to the spot, alerted the tahsildar of Akkalakot about the incident. But the tahsildar reached the spot very late.

The relatives of the deceased and villagers were so enraged that they went on a rampage and burnt the vehicle of the tahsildar.

They also pelted stones at an earthmover reportedly used by the sand mafia.

The violence aggravated after the tahsildar told the villagers that Maharashtra government wouldn’t pay any compensation to the victims’ families.

Sources said that the villagers did not accept the funeral assistance offered by the tahsildar and cremated the deceased on the banks of River Bhima.

When contacted, Bijapur SP Ram Nivas Sepat told Deccan Herald that no case has been registered at any police station in the district as the incident occurred in Maharashtra.