Lucknow: Three women died and two teenage girls went missing after members of the same family drowned in the Saryu river in Ayodhya on Tuesday afternoon. A multi-agency search operation, involving divers and the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), was under way till late evening to trace the missing girls.Chief minister Yogi Adityanath expressed condolences and directed officials to expedite rescue efforts and extend all possible assistance to the bereaved family.Police said two women and four girls from the same family had gone to the riverbank, nearly 3 km from the village, for an outing when the tragedy unfolded.According to police, Sajrul Nisha, 45 , wife of Akram, entered the river to bathe but inadvertently moved into deeper waters and began drowning. In a bid to rescue her, her daughter Nazia, 16 , Mariam, 18 , Rashida, 15 , and another relative, Shaheen, 35 , who was visiting her maternal home, also stepped into the river. However, they too were caught in the strong current and began to drown.A girl who remained on the bank raised an alarm, prompting villagers to rush to the spot and initiate rescue efforts. After nearly one-and-a-half hours of coordinated operations, locals along with emergency responders retrieved three women — Sajrul Nisha, Shaheen and Mariam — and rushed them to a nearby hospital, where doctors declared them dead.The search for the two missing girls, Nazia and Rashida, was continuing .Raunahi SHO Ratna Sharma said, “Divers and SDRF personnel are carrying out an intensive search in the river.” Following the incident, the district administration urged people to exercise extreme caution while bathing in rivers, especially during the monsoon, when currents can suddenly intensify.
