Two teenage girls drown in Odisha village

The Laxmi Puja celebration ended in a tragedy at a village in Odisha's Kendrapara district when two teenage girls allegedly drowned while plucking flowers from a pond.

The police said that a pall of gloom descended over Deuli village after news spread that two teenage girls drowned while plucking flowers to be offered in the puja.

The police said that the two Dalit girls - Pujarini Behera (10) and Subhadra Behera (9) - who studied in a government-run primary school, did not know swimming.