Bhatkal: Three people, including two girls students of a primary school, drowned in a lake in Yellapur town in Uttara Kannada district on Saturday.

According to sources, the deceased have been identified as Sarita Vijay Goswami (13), Divya Ramesh Goswami (11) and Silven Savera Fernandez (24) of Yellapur town. It is said that the girls were playing on the lake bank after their school hours on Saturday afternoon. As they fell into the lake, they screamed for help. Silven, a daily wage worker of the Horticulture Department, rushed to the spot to rescue the drowning girls. As he did not know swimming, he drowned in the lake along with the girls.

Yellapur CPI Vijay Biradar with his team rushed to the spot. All the three bodies were fished out and handed over to thier family after the postmortems.