DHENKANAL: A pall of gloom descended on Natakata village within Dhenkanal Sadar police limits following the death of two minor boys after falling into an open well in their village late on Saturday night.
The deceased, 4-year-old Sanjit Pradhan and 6-year-old Ranjit Pradhan, were sons of Kampani Pradhan, a farmer.
Bhapur outpost in-charge sub-inspector (SI) Chandrakanta Sethy said Kampani has four sons and a daughter of which the deceased duo is the youngest. “Kampani was in his agriculture field to harvest paddy. When he returned home in the evening, he could not find his two sons at home. So along with other villagers, he began a frantic search for the kids. However, when he failed to trace the boys, Kampani complained to the police,” Sethy added.
A police team rushed to the spot along with fire officials and initiated a search operation but could not find the boys. “Later on Sunday morning, some locals found the bodies of the minors floating in the village well. The well was open,” Sethi informed.
On getting information, police reached the spot and seized the bodies for postmortem. An unnatural death case was registered in this connection, the SI said.