Compiled by KHOO JIAN TENG, C.ARUNO and R. ARAVINTHAN
A DEVOTEE celebrating the Vinayagar Chaturthi festival in India drowned while trying dissolve a deity statue, Makkal Osai reported.
During the festival, devotees make temporary idols out of natural clay or mud which are then dissolved in bodies of water after the festival.
Bavujaan, 24, from Andra Pradesh who made such a statue for the festival reportedly went to a dam near Sowdasamudram village with a large group of youths to dissolve the idol.
However, he lost his footing while at the water’s edge, fell in and drowned.
Those who saw him fall searched, but could not find him.
The victim’s body was recovered the next day by authorities who conducted a recovery operation and sent the body for an autopsy.
The police are investigating the incident.
(The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.)
