BHUBANESWAR: A fun bathing plan at Kuakhai turned into tragedy when two schoolboys were swept away in the river water on the outskirts of the City on Wednesday. Two others were rescued by the locals while another boy managed to swim to safety.
Their sixth friend, who had decided not to go for the swim and stayed back at the river embankment, watched in horror as the tragic incident played out right in front of him. The six friends had planned the bath on Tuesday night and accordingly, bunked classes and took three bi-cycles from Acharya Vihar to Kuakhai river. They are all Class IX students of Government Boys’ High School in Unit IX. All of them were wearing normal clothes under their school uniforms.
The deceased have been identified as Safique Digal (15) of Biseswar Basti and Jagmohan Sahoo (15) of Bana Dhaba Basti in the City. While five of them ventured into the water, Jagmohan was pulled in by the river current. Seeing their friend in trouble, Safique, Debashish Rout, Aman Sahoo and Trilochan Nayak tried to rescue him but they too were pulled in by the current.
Debashish said he along with Safique and Aman formed a chain to save Jagmohan but the current was strong. “We then called the fishermen for help and one of them saved us, but Jagmohan and Safique were swept away,” Debashish said. While a fisherman saved two of them, another one managed to swim to safety. The firefighters launched a search operation and fished out the bodies of the two students. School’s assistant teacher Sanjeev Patnaik said they checked the attendance and found out that the six students had skipped their classes on Wednesday.
Incidentally, while the rescue operation was underway, a dismissed lady home guard attempted to commit suicide by jumping into Kuakhai river. The fire service personnel, who were searching for the missing boys, immediately rescued the woman.“The woman was dismissed from services in 2013. We are investigating why she attempted to commit suicide,” Zone V ACP Kishore Mund said.
Two days ago, a 55-year-old woman had jumped into the river but she was rescued by Odisha Fire Service personnel. With a series of similar mishaps being reported from the river bank in the last few days, the Commissionerate Police decided to deploy two police personnel each in two shifts near the river to prevent any recurrence. Warning signage would also be put up at several places.