Three students drowned in the Godavari River at Kunavaram village along the Andhra Pradesh-Telangana border on Friday, while two more went missing.

“The three victims, all natives of Bhadrachalam and Madanapalle, were pursuing engineering at SRM University,” said Eluru District Superintendent of Police K. Pratap Shiva Kishore.

A group of seven students went to Sri Sitaramachandra Swamy Vaari Devastanam on a trip. After darshan, they went to the river for taking a dip, the SP said.

They parked their car on the riverbank and entered the water. Five of them, identified as P. Satish Kumar, G. Teja, Navdeep, P. Abhiram and Ch. Srikar, were caught in the swirling water while two students swam to the shore,” Polavaram Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) M. Venkateswara Rao said.

The local residents retrieved the bodies of Abhiram, Srikar and another student. A search is on for the two students who went missing.

The bodies would be shifted to Bhadrachalam Government Hospital for post-mortem, the SP said.