Five people drowned Wednesday in a public tank near a temple while performing rituals in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, police said.
The incident took place near Dharmalingeshwarar temple in the Nanganallur area of Chennai, the capital city of Tamil Nadu.
The devotees had gathered at the tank for rituals as part of the Panguni Uthiram (Tamil festival) celebrations.
“First one person slipped, and subsequently those who tried to rescue them drowned as well. We are investigating what went wrong and if protocols were followed,” Chennai Police Commissioner Shankar Jiwal was quoted by a local television news channel NDTV as having said.
This is the second deadly incident near a temple in India in less than a week.
Last week 36 people were killed and over a dozen others injured when the roof of a stepwell inside a temple collapsed in Indore city of the central state of Madhya Pradesh. The devotees had gathered to celebrate the Hindu festival of Ram Navami.