Five students drown in two separate boat capsize incidents

Three school boys aged between 10 and 12 years of Burgaon High School met with a watery grave after a boat carrying 12 students capsized in a flooded water body at Burgaon Patekibori under Mayong police station at around 8.45 AM, they said.

In a similar incident at Bholokaguri under the same police station, two school students of the same age group, including a girl drowned, while another was still missing.

The boat carrying six students of Bholokaguri M E School capsized at around 8 AM, the sources said, adding, three other students, however, swam to safety.

The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), police, along with local people have swung into action to rescue the students. Five bodies have been fished out and a search operation has been launched for the missing student, they said.

The victims of the first incident were identified as Sheikh Farib, Nurjamal Sarkar and girl student Samsur Nehar, while the two in the other capsize were Sobikur Rahman and Akrum Begum.

The students were rowing the small country boats with their bare hands when their craft overturned causing all of them to fall into the flooded water bodies, the sources said.

During the flood season, students use such small boats for going and coming from their schools in that area.