5 minors, including 3 from PM Shri Navodaya Vidyalaya drown to death in separate incidents in Odisha

Five students, including three from PM Shri Navodaya Vidyalaya in Koraput and two minor girls from Mayurbhanj district, met their watery graves on Saturday while taking a bath in different water bodies in two separate incidents in Odisha.

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In the first incident, three Class 10 students drowned in the Kolab reservoir in Koraput district. They lost their lives after ‘drowning in the water body’ under circumstances that remain unclear. The students had just completed their Class 10 board examinations.

Local authorities and residents were alerted soon after the incident, and efforts were made to recover the bodies from the water. The tragedy has sent shockwaves through the local community and the school fraternity, with many expressing grief over the untimely loss of the young and male students.

No comments were received from the students’ families or local police in this regard.

The second incident was reported from Mayurbhanj district, where two minor girls, who happened to be friends, drowned in a village pond, leaving their families and the local community devastated.

The fatal mishap occurred in Nachhipur village under Kaptipada police limits. The deceased girls were identified as seven-year-old Shubhasandhya Nayak and eight-year-old Rajalakshmi Sankhual. Both were students of Dandaghat Dehuri Sahi School.

According to family sources, the two girls returned home from school and later went to a nearby pond to take a bath. Their families had advised them to bathe using a tube well instead, but the friends went to the pond together.

After some time, family members noticed the girls drowning in the water. They immediately rushed into the pond and rescued them before taking them to the hospital in Kaptipada for treatment. However, doctors declared both children ‘dead’ on arrival.

The tragic death of the two young friends, who went together to bathe and lost their lives in the same pond, has created a wave of grief in the entire village. Residents and relatives gathered in large numbers as the news spread, mourning the untimely loss of the two children.

“The children came from the school, and then, my daughter told me that she’ll go to bathe at the pond. I said ‘no’ and warned her. Are you going to the pond? Which pond will you go to? The reply was, they were going to the village pond,” Rajalakshmi’s father, Rabindra Sankhual, said.

“I asked her to go take a bath at the tube-well instead. After some time, I searched for my daughter to see where she had gone. I went to the well but found no trace. A little while later, some locals informed that the children drowned in the pond,” Rabindra stated.

“After hearing that the two children had drowned in the pond water, I went straight there, without even taking off my pants and shirt, and plunged in. I searched and found them in the middle of the water,” Shubhasandhya’s relative, Ashok Nayak, expressed.

Reported By: Surya Narayan Panda, Abhijit Biswal