7, including 3 students, drown in Tirunelveli

TIRUNELVELI: Seven people, who had visited Tirunelveli district to spend the Pooja holidays, drowned in two separate incidents. The deceased were from Chennai and Puducherry, except one who was from Tirunelveli, police sources said.
In the incident that took place in Papanasam, four people, employed at a private company in Virugambakkam, Chennai drowned in the Papanasam dam.They were identified as Srinivasan and Nakkiran from Chennai and Vasantharaj and Sathishkumar from Karaikal in Puducherry union territory. "They came to Tirunelveli on Saturday. After visiting a few tourist spots, they had come to Papanasam dam on the second day, where they drowned. As they failed to return to the hotel where they had checked in, the hotel employees had informed the police," a police officer said.
Although they drowned on Sunday, the incident came to light on Monday evening, when one body was found floating. The bodies of others were fished out on Tuesday morning.
In the second incident, three students from a private engineering college in Chengalpet in Chennai drowned in Thamirabarani river in Mukkudal. The deceased were identified as Kirubakaran of Alankulam in Tirunelveli district, Shobanbabu and Thamim Ansari of Chengalpet. Police sources said the trio had come to Alankulam and stayed in Kirubakaran's house. They had visited Kanyakumari and returned to Alankulam on Sunday, before visiting the river, located 20kms away, on Monday evening.
"They had ventured into the deeper areas of the river though none of them could swim," a police officer said. Police along with Fire and Rescue Service personnel recovered the bodies.