Four girls studying at a residential ashram school run by religious leader Sadhvi Ritambhara drowned in a canal in Madhya Pradesh's Khandwa district on Wednesday, police said. The incident took place in the morning at Kothi village under Mandhata (Omkareshwar) police station limits, an official said.?

The victims, who were in the age group of 10 to 11 years, were Class 5 students and lived in the ashram run by Sadhvi Ritambhara, he said. The girls had gone to the canal for a bath when one of them started drowning and the others tried to rescue her, said Mandhata police station in-charge Balram Singh. All of them, however, drowned, he added.

The deceased, identified as Vaishali, Pratigya, Divyanshi and Anjana, hailed from Khargone district, the police official said. The police fished out the bodies and sent them for autopsy, he added. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan condoled the deaths in a statement.?

(With PTI inputs)
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