Holi revelry turned shocking on Thursday evening with the drowning of three teenagers at the Baroda Ghat in Bagbera on River Kharkai.

According to information, six teenagers, all from Shivnagar area near Lal Baba Foundry area in Burmamines, had come to Baroda Ghat on the bank of Kharkai River in Bagbera with a desire to take a bath and wash off the Holi colour.

“All of them had crossed a check-dam to the Adityapur side of the Kharkai River to take a bath. While returning to Bagbera side, all of them had slipped on to the river and started screaming or help. The locals rushed to their rescue and managed to pull over three of them. However, the bodies of others three could not be rescued as they had drowned,” said Madan Mohan Sharma, Bagbera police station OC.

Sushant Kumar, one of the rescued teenager yesterday evening, who was present at the spot to help the rescue team at Baroda Ghat, narrated the incident, “We all friends comprising Sushant Kumar (20), Suraj Gupta (16), Abhishek Pandey (17) Sant Kumar (16), Dhiraj Kumar (14), and Adarsh Singh (17) then decided to freak it out in the river.

As few of us had visited the ghat during chhath festivity, we decided to come to the ghat and all of us went to take a bath at the Adityapur side crossing the check dam. While returning, all of us slipped and fell in to the river. I, along with Sant and Dhiraj, was rescued by the locals but not the other three,” he said.

While Adarsh Singh, son of Harendra Singh, was a class ten student of B.P.M High School, Abhishek and Suraj were class 10 students of St Joseph’s High School in Golmuri. The body of Adarsh was today sent for autopsy at MGM Hospital before being handed over to parents.