Bhubaneswar: Two students of Sambalpur University drowned while bathing in Brahmani river at Vedvyas in Sundargarh district of Odisha today.

The deceased students have been identified as Rajat Sahu and Samiran Sukumar Nayak of Sambalpur University Institute of Information Technology.

Rajat, a second year student of the institute, was doing internship at the Electronics and Communication department of the National Institute of Technology (NIT) at Rourkela in Sundargarh district.

Samiran, a resident of Patia area in Bhubaneswar, was also doing internship at the Computer Science and Engineering department of the NIT-Rourkela.

A group of at least six students, including two girls, visited famous Vedvyas shrine today. They also went for taking bath in the Brahmani river near the shrine.

While bathing in the river, the students were drifted towards deep water due to strong currents. Two of them drowned while four others, including the two girls, were rescued safely.

The rescued students were immediately rushed to Rourkela Government Hospital (RGH).

The rescued students were identified as Abhilipsa Pradhan and Baishnu Devi of Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology (VSSUT) at Burla in Sambalpur, Samvidhan Sahu of Sambalpur University and Tapan Kumar Patra of SOA University in the Odisha capital here. They were also doing internship at NIT-Rourkela.

On being informed, officials of the Brahmani Tarang police reached the spot and launched a probe into the incident.