Cuttack: A youth drowned to death in Birupa river at Gunupur under Mahanga police limits in Odisha’s Cuttack district on Friday.
The deceased has been identified as Padmalochan Jena from Kalianti village in Mahanga tehsil.
According to sources, Padmalochan had gone with his friend Mrutyunjay Sethi from the same village, to offer prayers at the Lord Shani temple on the banks of the river. While he was returning, he somehow slipped and fell into the water. His friend, who was on the shore, saw him struggling to stay afloat and raised an alarm. “I heard his screams from afar at the river bank. People were nearby and must have heard his cries for help too. But nobody tried to reach him on time,” his friend Mrutyunjay told a local news channel.
Locals informed Mahanga police about the incident. Following which he was rescued and an officer from Mahanga police station administered CPR to him. He was then taken to the Community Health Centre (CHC) at Mahanga, but doctors there declared him dead on arrival.
Police seized his body and informed his family. The body was later sent to SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack for postmortem.
