Faridabad, March 24
Three students of a local engineering college drowned in a lake near Faridabad’s Sirohi village on Monday afternoon while another was rescued by his classmates.

A group of seven first-year BTech students of BS Anangpuria College of Engineering on the Pali-Sohna road reached the artificial lake around 3 pm after their classes. Ravi Bhati of Sanjay Colony and Pankaj Sharma of Adarsh Nagar, Ballabgarh, first entered the water for a bath. They found the water too deep and cried for help.

Their friends Raghav and Pankaj Kumar jumped into the water, but could not rescue them. Raghav, too, drowned in the process. Pankaj was rescued by three other friends present at the spot. They prepared a rope by tying their clothes and belts together and threw it towards Pankaj and pulled him to safety. The students, who had not entered the lake, immediately informed the police, but the fire brigade team reached the spot only after half an hour. They fished out three bodies. The police handed over the bodies to the families after a post-mortem.

The lake is said to have been formed after years of illegal mining in the Aravalis.