Ranchi: Three teenagers drowned in a bid to swim while the fourth had a close shave on Saturday afternoon at Jonha Falls in Angara thana area, some 40km from district headquarters.

Those who died were identified as Anshuman Gupta (17), Rahul Kumar (18) and Raj Yaduvanshi (18). Their friend who survived was 17-year-old Ritwik Kumar.

The bodies of the trio have been recovered while the surviving friend is at Angara thana in a state of shock.

From the sketchy details that have emerged so far from Ritwik's incoherent statements, one of the dead was a student of St Xavier's College and another of Deo Coaching. But, Ritwik was in no position to speak on another deceased boy and himself.

While individual identities are not clear, it seems all friends were outstation students staying at a private lodge at Pee Pee Compound in Ranchi. The friends had hired an Ola cab (JH 01CR 0726) to visit the spot.

"All of them seem to be students and living on rent at a private lodge at Pee Pee Compound in Ranchi. They jumped in the waterfall and were swept away in the deeper ends of the falls. Their parents are being contacted and bodies will be sent to RIMS for postmortem," said Silli DSP Satish Kumar Jha in the evening.

Asked, he said the boys drowned between 12.30pm and 1pm. Their bodies were recovered by a group Paryatan Mitras (tourists' friends), who are also trained swimmers, around 2.30pm, when a barely conscious Ritwik alerted them.

An eye witness Rajkishore Bedia said they got the hired car parked in front of the forest department guest house around 12.30pm. "Then, they were spotted at an extreme point of waterfall called Duba Dah, which is one of the most dangerous points as the water body here is around 15 to 20 feet deep with dangerous gorge," said Bedia.

He claimed the youths were drunk, but the police did not confirm it saying it was too early to jump to conclusion before post-mortem.

Police said Anshuman and Raj first jumped into water but could not swim. Rahul and Ritwik jumped to rescue them. Only Ritwik could survive by holding on to a rock.