Uttarakhand: Selfie costs youth his life, drowns in Ganga at Rishikesh

Rishikesh, Mar 18: A 22-year-old man slipped and fell in river Ganga while taking a selfie near Laxmanjhoola in Uttarakhand's Rishikesh. The local police immediately rushed to rescued him. They pulled the youth out of the river and rushed him to nearby clinic, but the doctors pronounced him dead. The mishap took place on Sunday (March 17).

22-year-old Ashish, from Kotdwar, had gone to visit Laxmanjhoola in Rishikesh along with four of his friends, reported Amar Ujala. At Mastram ghat on the banks of Ganga, they decided to take a dip in the holy river.

While they were taking bath, Ashish took out his mobile phone to take selfies. Ashish is said to slipped while taking selfie and was carried away by a strong current in the river. His friends immediately infomed the Jal Police.

Jal Police personnel - Ritesh and Udit - then dived into the river to rescue Ashish, said report. It took them sometime to find him and pull him out of the water as the current was strong. They rushed him to a nearby clinic in Rishikesh, but was pronounced dead by the doctors.

Last year in April, a 21-year-old BTech student of Graphic Era Institute, Dehradun, drowned in the Ganga river at Shivpuri in Rishikesh. The victim was a resident of Rudrapryag district and was a fourth year BTech student at the Dehradun-based institute.

In May 2017, a 26-year-old engineer employed with a Gurgaon firm drowned in Ganga in Rishikesh. The victim, Neeraj Kumar, who hailed from Ballabhgarh in Faridabad, was in Rishikesh with five of his friends. The group went to Shivpuri to take a dip in Ganga where Kumar swam deeper into the river and drowned.