H.D. Kote: Even as Mahashivaratri fervour gripped the entire State on Friday, a pall of gloom descended in the Taluk as the news of four boys having met a watery grave in a village lake, spread, by Friday evening. 

As it was a holiday yesterday on account of Shivaratri, four boys, all in their teens —Yashwanth (15) and Rohit (14) who are brothers from Savve village, Kiran(14) and Kendaganna (14), both residents of G.G. Colony and students of a Government School in the taluk — went for a swim at Padukote Lake near Malabar Shed at about 4 pm. But all of them were caught in strong current minutes later and drowned, it is learnt. Local swimmers who rushed to the spot, succeeded in fishing out all the four bodies by sunset.

The bodies were shifted to H.D. Kote General Hospital, where the post-mortem was conducted this morning.

MLA  Anil Chikkamadu, Tahsildar Manjunath and other officials visited the families of the victims and assured them of Government compensation. Hunsur Dy. SP Sundarraj, CPI Puttaswamy, PSI Madhwa Nayak and other Policemen visited the spot. H.D. Kote Police have registered a case in this regard.