In a tragic incident, five students of Maharsihi Vidhya Mandir School, Ratanpur, drowned in the Betwa River at Bhojpur on Sunday when a group of friends were swept away by high water currents of the river.
The victims were not found till the rescue operation was stalled in the evening. As many as 23 students of school had gone to picnic on Sunday afternoon at Bhojpur.
The Raisen District Collector JK Jain told The Pioneer that initially one of the students got injured on his leg while he was jumping into the river and started drowning, then others too drowned when they were attempting to rescue him. It was not confirmed that they bunked their scheduled coaching Class at MP Nagar or it was a preplanned picnic.
Out of the five victims, no one was found by the rescue team till the operation lasted late in the evening. Due to heavy rains in the area in the last week the water level has increased and the water current was high due to which the victims might not be able to save themselves, he added.
The Town Inspector of Obedullaganj police station Mahednra Singh Meena said that 23 students of Class XI and Class XII had gone for picnic at Bhojpur on Sunday and at around 3-4 pm when
Abhay Gupta jumped into the river he got injured and started drowning, to rescue him four of his friends jumped into the river but were swept due to the high water current.
The other friends informed the police personnel after which local divers were roped in to save the victims but were unable to find them. The rescue operation was stalled due to bad light which will resume by early morning, he added.
The drowned victims were identified as Abhay Gupta (Sidhi), Mohit Neekhra (Kanpur), Swapnil Tiwari (Satna) and Pratul Gupta (Rewa) the four were hostler while Ujjwal Bharke (Bhopal) was of day boarding.