Hyderabad, Dec 25 (IANS): Tension prevailed at the KPHB police station in Hyderabad on Saturday as BJP workers staged a protest demanding justice for the families of three girls, who drowned in a water body formed at an abandoned government construction site.

Family members and relatives of the three girls and BJP workers led by Medchal urban district president Harish Reddy staged the protest outside the police station. They demanded Rs 12 lakh ex-gratia, two-bedroom houses each for the families of the deceased.

Police shifted the mother of one of the victims to her house. Later, a senior official of the Housing Board reached there and assured the protestors that they would convey the demands to higher-ups.

Sangeeta (12), Sofia (10) and Ramya (seven) drowned while playing at the construction site in KPHB Colony's phase IV on Friday afternoon. Police with the help of NDRF teams and expert swimmers pulled out the bodies on Friday night.

The bodies were shifted to the government-run Gandhi Hospital and after autopsy, they were handed over to their families on Saturday.

According to the police, a group of five girls entered the government property by sneaking in through a narrow gap in the boundary fence.

Three of them entered the flooded trench on the site and drowned. Two others who had stayed out ran out to inform their families.

The deceased were students of a government school.