10-yr-old drowns in sand mining pit in West Bengal

A 10-year-old boy drowned after slipping into a pit on Leesh river bed here, suspected to have been dug for illegal sand mining, police sources said.

The victim, Eyas Oraon, a resident of a tea garden in Jalpaiguri, tripped and fell into the 15 feet by 30 feet trench while playing with friends on an islet of the river Sunday afternoon, the sources at Malbazar police station said.

Oraon's body has been fished out and sent for postmortem at Jalpaiguri hospital, they said.

According to the sources, the pit was illegally dug to extract sand and rocks for use in construction work.

Officials in the administration, however, declined to comment on the incident, maintaining that steps were being taken to stem illegal sand mining in the region.