Bhubaneswar: Panic struck Lankaput Primary School in Odisha’s Koraput district when 20 hostel students were found missing during morning classes on Monday.
A thorough search of the school premises and hostel yielded no results, prompting staff to alert the parents, who hurried to the school and joined the search effort. The students were finally traced to Pondi forest, about 5 km away, near the Kolab reservoir after nearly three hours of anxious searching and safely brought back to the hostel.
Koraput Block Development Officer Debasis Gouda, along with education department officials, rushed to the school to i
nvestigate how the students were able to leave the hostel unnoticed by authorities.
Sources revealed that only one peon is assigned to supervise the hostel residents, and due to inadequate oversight, boarders frequently slip out to play in the adjacent forest and usually return before classes begin. On this occasion, the 20 students had reportedly gone to their usual play spot but, realising they would be late for school, chose to remain in the forest until classes ended.
The school hostel currently houses at least 40 students from Classes I to V.
This incident came a week after three minors, who reportedly went missing from the hostel of Bamra government girls’ high school, were located by police at Kuchinda bus station after an extensive overnight search operation. They were reportedly preparing to travel out of the district to seek employment.