Students: Telangana home min, police team to leave for HP

Hyderabad, Jun 8: Telangana Home Minister Naini Narsimha Reddy and a police team are leaving for Himachal Pradesh after the reported tragedy in which over 20 students from the city were feared to have been washed away in the hill state.

Reddy will be leaving for HP upon instructions from Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.

"Telangana DGP Anurag Sharma and Cyberabad Police Commissioner CV Anand are in touch with top police officials of Himachal Pradesh," Assistant Commissioner of Police (Petbasheerabad Division) M Srinivasa Rao told PTI tonight.

He said that the police team will leave for Kullu in the early hours tomorrow.

"A group of 48 students studying II-nd year Electronics and Instrumentation at a city-based private engineering college were on a study tour of HP when the tragedy struck them this evening," Srinivasa Rao said.

The study tour had started from June 3, he added. Srinivasa Rao spoke to one of the students of the group and quoted him as saying that "the incident occurred as a group of around 25 students, including seven girls, were taking photographs near the river bank when there was a sudden gush of water in which they were feared to have been washed away".

"We are in constant touch with some other students who had gone on the trip. I have been informed that it was a 10- day tour," the ACP said. Cyberabad Police Commissioner CV Anand said he had spoken to the Kullu Superintendent of Police on the relief and rescue operations.

PTI