Rabongla (South Sikkim), Aug 5: Two high school students drowned in the Cho-Dzo lake yesterday afternoon after they had sneaked into the enclosed area with a group of friends while the chowkidar was away.
Kamal Sharma of Class XI and Pramod Chettri of Class XII both studied at VC Ganju Lama Senior Secondary School here. Neither knew how to swim and probably got stuck in the mud at the bottom of the lake.
While Sharma hails from Polok in the Ralong constituency, Chettri was from Golitar, a village near here.
The Cho Dzo lake is located below Ralong Road. Sharma and Chettri were part of a group of six schoolboys who reached the lakeside, a restricted zone, after sneaking in through a broken section of the locked main gate of the enclosure.
The chowkidar who mans the gate had gone home on some errand.
VC Ganju Lama Senior Secondary School is currently hosting the Independence Day Cup Football tournament, which is why all classes after the lunch break have been suspended for the time being.
The subdivisional police officer of Rabongla, T.D. Kazi, said investigations revealed that the boys played volleyball by the lakeside for almost an hour and afterwards, feeling tired and sweaty, they decided to take a swim in the lake.
Chettri decided to wade into the deeper side of the lake. Cho Dzo Lake looks innocuous to the naked eye but heavy rainfall in the past one week has raised its water level quite a bit. Chettri would have found himself in 7-8ft of water and his leg probably got trapped in the mud.
When Chettri did not come up to the surface even after quite a few minutes, Sharma, his friend, dived in at the same spot, ignoring the warnings of the other boys.
Sharma did not come out of the water either.
None of the other four boys know how to swim and they stood around for a while, not knowing what to do. Then they ran back to Rabongla town, which is about 1.5km from the lake, and informed police who rushed to the spot.
However, by then it was already too late and the police could only fish out the bodies. After post-mortem, the bodies were handed over to the families. Sharma and Chettri were cremated today.
The Cho-Dzo lake is the venue of Rabong Discovered, a festival held every year in April. The lakeside is being developed as a cultural and handicrafts village. Around 10 years ago a, boy had drowned in the lake.
