Five children died due to drowning at different places during the traditional Boita Bandana festival on Kartik Purnima in Odisha. These children, aged between five and 12, lost their lives while participating in the annual ritual.
Colorful small boats are floated in ponds, rivers and other water bodies during the ‘Boita Bandana’ festival. Police said that two girls, aged about five years, drowned in a pond in Panishpada village under Basta police limits in Balasore.
The daughters of Dilip Kumar Das and Manas Nanda started collecting small boats from the pond in the absence of their family and during this time both of them drowned in the pond. Authorities later recovered their bodies.
In another incident in Balasore, a three-year-old child drowned in a pond in Saundiya village under Khaira police limits, police said. A similar incident took place in Cuttack district, where Pradipta Bhoi’s three-year-old son drowned while trying to collect a boat from a pond in Karmuan village located in Salepur block.
Police said that a 12-year-old girl, Sabitri Hantal, drowned in a pond in Champanagar in Malkangiri district. She was trying to take out the coins kept on small boats, when she fell into deep water and started drowning. He was immediately rescued and taken to a nearby hospital, but he was declared dead on arrival, police said.
