BALURGHAT: In a tragic incident, two young girls drowned while trying to immerse a paper-made idol of Goddess Kali in the Atreyee River in Dhadolpara, a village in the Kumarganj block of South Dinajpur district.
The deceased have been identified as Isha Sarkar (9) and Monti Sarkar (10), both residents of the local area. According to local residents and family members, the two girls, along with another girl and a boy, had crafted a paper idol of Goddess Kali as part of a playful activity and performed a symbolic Puja. Following the ritual, the four children went to immerse the idol in the river.
Reports suggest that all four children entered the river and soon began to drown. Local residents rushed to the scene upon noticing the incident and managed to rescue two children — Trisha Sarkar (9) and Bishal Sarkar (11) — alive. However, the other two girls were swept away by the current. A team of divers was called in and with the help of locals, the bodies of the two missing girls were later recovered. Their bodies were sent to the Balurghat District Hospital for post-mortem examination.
The entire locality is mourning the loss. Speaking on the incident, local resident Ratan Sarkar said: “The children regularly bathe in the Atreyee River. On this day, they went to immerse the idol they had made. Unfortunately, all four began drowning. Two could be saved but we couldn’t rescue the other two in time.”