Excelsior Correspondent
REASI, Dec 10: In a tragic incident, three young workers of a stone crusher unit drowned when an excavating machine, they were on board, fell into a ditch in Ans River at Sungri, under the jurisdiction of Police Station Chassana, here late last night.
The incident took place around 9.30 pm last night and the deceased were crossing the river on board an excavating machine, which submerged in water, said SSP Reasi, Amit Gupta.
He also ruled out the speculations of deceased allegedly engaged in illegal mining in the late night and said that the trio was on way in connection with their work as employees of the stone crusher unit and met with the accident due to darkness.
The deceased were identified as Natish Kumar, age 23 years, resident of Kalakote in district Rajouri, Rajinder Kumar, age 27 years, resident of Patnitop, district Udhampur and Hoshiyar Singh, age 23 years, son of Shankar Dass, resident of Balmatkote, district Reasi.
While one of them was working as ‘Munshi’ with the stone crusher unit, namely Kiran Associates, the other two were driver of the excavator and his helper.
Apparently due to darkness, the driver could not spot the ditch with the result excavating machine fell into it and got submerged giving no time to the victims to save their lives.
The trio reportedly died on the spot due to drowning and the mishap remained unnoticed for quite some time till the men at stone crusher unit and Police team reached there.
Later, the police shifted the dead bodies to hospital. After completion of postmortem and other legal formalities, the bodies were handed over to the families for last rites.
A case FIR has been registered in this connection for further investigation even as police have ruled out any mischief.
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