The five, including two brothers and their relatives, had gone for the 'mundan' (ritual tonsure) of Raju Kumar's child at Simaria Ganga Ghat under Chakia police station in the district.

During the ritual, six people entered the river to take a bath without estimating its depth. Due to which everyone went into deep water and started drowning. One of them managed to swim out but the rest drowned. They were identified as 21-year-old Rohit Kumar, 17-year-old Babu Saheb, 18-year-old Ajay Kumar, 17-year-old Om Mishra and 20-year-old Dhavya Kumar.

The SDRF team recovered all the bodies and sent them for postmortem examination.

The victims are residents of Barauni town of Begusarai and there is an atmosphere of mourning in the entire area due to their death.