Nuapada: Three youths drowned in a waterfall while immersing a Ganesh idol in the district on Thursday but their bodies were retrieved on Saturday.
According to sources, six youths had gone for immersion of Ganesh idol in Godhas waterfall under Dharambandh police station. While three of them were bathing in the waterfall after the immersion, they slipped into deep water and went missing.
Though the other three youths desperately searched for them, they could not find them and informed the police. The police went to the spot and also sought the help of Fire Brigade.
The Fire personnel started the search operation for the missing youths in the evening, but could not trace them. After a futile search for 2-3 hours, they called off the operation as it had become dark.
The bodies of the three youths were traced from under the water after three days of search on Saturday. They brought the bodies to the land and handed over those to police.
The youths are Amit Kumar Gupta (25), Raj Kumar Gupta (24) and Nilesh Singh (33) of Nuapada. All of them were working in a liquor shop in the town.
The police have registered an unnatural death case and sent the bodies for post-mortem.