Kuppam (Andhra Pradesh), Feb 4 (IANS): Close on the heels of the shocking murder of two women by their parents in Madanapalle, another tragedy was recorded from Andhra Pradesh's Chittoor district on Thursday in which four members of a family, two women and their two daughters, drowned to death in a pond.

"Four persons who went to wash clothes accidentally fell into a pond and drowned. A small girl aged about six years accidentally fell into the pond first and in an attempt to save that girl, her mother also drowned," a police official told IANS.

The second woman and her daughter also drowned in a bid to save them.

The incident occurred around 11.30 a.m. in a pond called Ramakuppanikanta on the outskirts of Onturu village in Kuppam mandal of Chittoor.

The deceased were identified as Rukhminibai (36), her daughter Aarti (8), Rukhminibai's co-sister Rajeshwari (30) and her daughter Keerthi (6).

Incidentally, there was nobody else at the scene and the sequence of the tragic happening is yet to be ascertained.

"People gathered at the pond said that Rukhmini, Rajeshwari and Aarti would have gone in search of Keerthi, the youngest," said the official.

Police registered a case under the Criminal Procedure Code's Section 174, dealing with probes into unnatural deaths.