Alappuzha: The bodies of two young women who had gone missing from Kollam district a couple of days ago were retrieved from the Vembanad Backwaters on Monday morning. They had reportedly jumped into the Muvattupuzha river from the Murinjapuzha Bridge at Vaikom in Kottayam district late on Saturday evening.

They have been identified as Amrutha Ani and Arya G Ashok. Both the deceased are 21 years old and had left from their homes at 10 am on November 13.

Amrutha is the daughter of Ani Sivadas of Ani Vilas at Idayam in Ayoor. Arya belongs to Neeroyikode area in Ayoor. She is the daughter of Ashok Kumar of Anju Bhavan.

Both of them were close friends and had completed their graduation from a private college in Anchal. They left home on Friday morning on the pretext of collecting their degree certificates.

Arya's family had spoken to her over phone on Friday noon. The phones of both the girls were switched off when their families tried to contact them in the evening, prompting the relatives to file missing complaints with the Anchal and Chadayamangalam police stations.

One body was recovered downstream from Odapuzha locality at Panavally in Poochakal in the coastal Alappuzha district. Another was found near the boat jetty at Perumbalam, a backwater island village, in the same district.

Poochakal is nearly 6 km south of Perumbalam.

The duo reportedly made the suicide bid at 7.45 pm on Saturday. Local residents had heard the screams of girls and something drowning. Ladies footwear that was found on the bridge fuelled suspicion that someone had indeed made the plunge into the river.

A search followed soon and a scuba-diving team of the Kerala Fire and Rescue Services was engaged on Sunday.   

The Murinjapuzha Bridge is on the Vaikom-Ernakulam road route and the bodies were found further northwest in the backwaters.