Six students drown during Ganesh immersion in Telangana’s Sangareddy

Gudem Mahipal Reddy, Patancheru MLA, with police officials of Serilingampally zone at Sangareddy hospital on Wednesday. | Photo credit: Mohd Arif

Six students of Sirisha Memorial Charitable Trust died when they accidentally fell into a pond while immersing a Ganesha idol near Peddakanjarla village in Sangareddy district on Wednesday evening.

The incident took place around 7 pm when a group of eight people went to a pond located three kilometers from their orphanage, on the outskirts of the village, to take a dip in Ganesha.

The six deceased have been identified as Siddharth, a class X student, Narasimha Raju, a second-year B.Tech student, Sumanth Reddy and Ganesh, both second-year polytechnic students, Uday Kiran, a third-year polytechnic student, and Shyam Kumar alias Shyam, a first-year polytechnic student.

All six were taken to Prachin Global Hospital in Patancher, where doctors declared them brought dead.

The students were residents of Sirisha Memorial Charitable Trust, a nursing home for homeless and orphaned children, at Shivanagar Crossroads, Peddakanjarla. According to sources, the trust will accommodate around 70 students from Class I to Polytechnic and B.Tech, with admission restricted to orphans.

Patancheru MLA Gudem Mahipal Reddy visited the hospital and directed officials to complete the post-mortem by 10 am on Thursday and arrange for the bodies to be taken to their respective home towns by ambulance. He is said to have secured the ambulances from his own funds.

According to the MLA, two deceased were from Vijayawada, two from Warangal and two from Kukatpally. He said the trust was conducting Ganesha immersion at the same place for the last 15 years.

Published – 16 Sep 2026 22:08 IST