Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar, responded to Punjab CM Captain Amarinder Singh's request to provide help in bringing back the mortal remains of four Sikh men who drowned in a sewage tank in Italy. The incident happened on Thursday at a cattle farm in Pavia, Italy due to the carbon dioxide fumes coming out from the cow manure, according to media reports.

"Saddened to hear about the death of 4 Punjabi men drown in a farm manure tank near Pavia, Italy. Request S. Jaishankar to instruct the Indian Mission in Italy to help get the mortal remains back to India," Amarinder Singh tweeted.

MEA's response

In response, the Union External Minister stated that the External Ministry has alerted the Indian Embassy that help has been extended. 

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Of the four men, two were brothers - Prem Singh, 48, and Tarsem Singh, 45 - who were running the farm. The other two were workers, identified as Arminder Singh, 29, and Manjinder Singh, 28. Prem and Tarsem had registered their farm in 2017 and were from a village in Jalandhar, while Arminder and Manjinder were from Tanda Urmar in Hoshiarpur.

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Firefighters recovered the bodies

The victims' wives raised the alarm when the men failed to turn up for lunch on Thursday. They rushed to the scene and spotted one body in the sewage. The wives then called in firefighters who donned masks and emptied the tank to recover all the bodies. According to Italian media reports, Singhs' farm at Arena Po, producing milk and veal cattle, is one of the biggest in the Pavia region.

The Agriculture Minister of Italy Teresa Bellanova tweeted condolences on the day of the incident and said, “Four workers lost their lives today on a nearby farm. My thoughts go first to families. Their safety at work is an indispensable right and we must make every effort to guarantee it.”

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(With PTI inputs)