Nayagarh: A pall of gloom descended on Abhimanpur village under Itamati police limits in Nayagarh district where two minor children in a family met a watery grave this morning.

The deceased children were Linkun Kar (12) and Prateek Pranayan Kar (11), cousins.

According to reports, two cousins -- Linkun, the son of Kartik Kar and Prateek, the son of Sarbeswar Kar -- had been to a village pond to take a bath in the morning. After they did not return home for a long hour, their family members started searching for them. They found a shirt and a pair of shoes near the pond following which they searched them in the water. At around 1.00 p.m., they recovered the bodies of the duo from the water.

The bodies were handed over to the family members after an autopsy at the District Headquarters Hospital in Nayagarh.

Sources said that the two children drowned after their legs slipped in the water while bathing in the pond.