In a deeply distressing incident, an 18-year-old B.Tech student from Burla College lost his life after drowning in a pond atop Kumuda Hill near Titilagarh on Thursday evening.
The deceased, identified as Bipul Gahir, was among nine students who had visited Hotel D N Resort in Titilagarh. With the hotel’s swimming pool non-operational, the group ventured to the nearby hilltop pond to bathe while waiting for their food.
Tragically, Bipul, who reportedly did not know how to swim, slipped while entering the pond and drowned. Local youths and bystanders launched immediate rescue efforts and managed to retrieve his body from the water.
He was rushed to the hospital with the assistance of locals. Police arrived promptly, and formal procedures, including the post-mortem, were conducted.
Bipul was the only son of Sunil Kumar Gahir, a junior works manager in the Badamal ammunition factory’s electrical maintenance section.
A second-year engineering student, his untimely demise has cast a pall of grief across the community and the hospital premises, where mourning relatives and friends gathered.
