Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhawanipatna, Dec 27:

Little did they know that the pre-New Year celebrations would turn out to be fatal for the three college students who met a watery grave in Odisha’s Kalahandi district today.

drowning

As per reports, a group of around 25 college students had gone for picnic to a site on the outskirts of the district headquarters town this morning.

After reaching the spot near Gunduri, five of the revellers had gone to take bath at Baringdar stream unaware of the fact that tragedy was waiting to strike them. The trio slipped into deep waters and remained untraced till locals fished their bodies out of the water after frantic search. Two of them were lucky to have survived.

While two of the deceased are reportedly from Bhawanipatna Junior College, one of them is a student of Pragati Science College. They have been identified as Sunil Panda, Vikram Pati and Sourav Nayak.

Their bodies were sent for post-mortem to district headquarters hospital here.

Tension ran high at the hospital as the parents of the deceased alleged that their wards have been murdered.

Meanwhile, police have been deployed to pacify the agitating crowd and bring the situation under control.

It may be mentioned here that the picnickers are pupils of a private tutorial here.