2 students meet watery grave in Mahanadi 

CUTTACK: In a tragic incident, two teenage students met watery grave while posing for taking photographs during bathing at Dhabaleswar Ghat of Mahanadi river under CDA Phase-II police limits on Saturday morning. The duo have been identified as Subham Panda (16), a +2 first year Commerce student of Christ College and Pritam Sethi (15), a Class-X student of Ravenshaw Collegiate School here. 
The incident occurred at about 8.30 am. After a frantic search for about five hours, the body of Subham was fished out by the rescue team at 2.45 pm, while the body of Pritam is still missing in the river.

Police sources said both Subham and Pritam, who were residing in Sector-7, had gone to take bath in the river along with their another friend Ritesh Pradhan (16), a +2 first year student of Raghunathjew College. They were giving pose in river water and Ritseh was taking snaps with a still camera when both slipped and were dragged inside deep water by strong currents of the river. 
After failing to rescue them, Ritesh raised an alarm following which, some fishermen rushed to the spot and tried to rescue them. But they also failed as both had swept away.

After being informed, as many as six scuba divers, two teams of the Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF) and a team of firefighters were pressed into service to recover the bodies. Police seized the camera and two spectacles from the spot. The body of Subham has been handed over to his family after postmortem, said IIC of CDA Phase-II police station Dillip Kumar Swain.Meanwhile, a pal of gloom descended in the area and locals accused the administration for not taking adequate precautionary measures and hosting warning signal at the bathing ghat.