Bhubaneswar, April 24 In a tragic incident, two minors on Thursday died by drowning in the Mahanadi River near Jobra Anicut in Cuttack.
The deceased minors were identified as Soumya Ranjan Behera (14) and Srishanta Jena (17) of Naikula Sai in the Jobra area of Cuttack.
A senior police official told IANS that as many as six minor friends, including the deceased, had come to bathe in the Mahanadi River on Thursday.
He said that four of them fortunately managed to get out of the water. However, the deceased minors got stuck in quicksand and couldn’t come out of the water.
“Upon being informed, police officials and fire services personnel reached the spot and engaged in the rescue operations. The fire services personnel, after a more than one-hour search, fished out the duo from the Mahanadi River,” he said.
He added that they were later rushed to the SCB Medical College and Hospital, where the doctors declared them dead on arrival.
The locals alleged that several persons had lost their lives by drowning while taking a bath at the particular spot, but the administration has yet to take any effective measures.
In another unfortunate incident, two minor sisters drowned in a pond in a village under the Kasia Marine Police station area in Bhadrak district on Thursday.
An official identified the deceased as Krishna Rani (7) and Koel Malik (5) of the Basudevpur area in Bhadrak district.
Sources claimed that the deceased sisters, along with their grandmother, had gone to a village pond to take a bath on Thursday morning. Their grandmother returned home after taking a bath, assuming that the sisters would follow her.
When the minors didn’t return after long hours, the family members started searching for them. They were later found floating unconscious in the pond.
The family members rushed the minors to a nearby hospital, where doctors declared the duo brought dead.
--IANS
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