Five persons drowned in Dharmalingeshwarar temple tank at Moovarasampettai near Keelkattalai in Tambaram on Wednesday. The mishap took place when the five members went to take bath in the temple tank after the temple festivities.
According to ABP Nadu, the five members were involved in taking Lord Dharmalingeshwarar in a procession across the area. Once the festivities got over, five members went to take part in a Theerthavari festival in the temple tank.
Against this backdrop, two of them reportedly went into deep waters and suddenly started to drown. The three others immediately rushed for help and tried to save them but all of them drowned.
The people who were nearby alerted Pazhavanthangal police. The police rushed to the spot and retrieved the bodies with the help of fire and rescue officials.
The deceased have been identified as Surya, Bhavanesh, Raghavan and Lokeshwaran, as per the report. The bodies of the deceased have been sent to a government hospital for post-mortem.
According to NDTV, Chennai Police Commissioner Shankar Jiwal said, "First a person slipped and subsequently those who tried to rescue him drowned as well. We are investigating about what went wrong and if protocols were followed."
Tamil Nadu Minister for Rural Industries TM Anbarasan visited the spot after the incident. Anbarasan said if they had informed the police the mishap could have been avoided.
Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department officials also inspected the tank.
On Wednesday, Tamil Nadu CM Stalin also expressed his condolences to the kin of the deceased persons. He said that financial assistance of Rs 2 lakh would be given to the families of the victims.
An investigation is underway into the case.
(With inputs from ABP Nadu — It is a Tamil platform of ABP News. For more news, commentary and latest happenings from Tamil Nadu, follow https://tamil.abplive.com/)