Dibrugarh: A birthday celebration turned tragic in Jorhat on Saturday afternoon after three students from Springdale Senior Secondary School drowned in a lake at Hatigarh tea estate in Cinnamora.The deceased have been identified as Sushant Patel, Rehan Ahmed and Akshat Rai. While Patel and Ahmed studied in Class 10, Rai was a student of Class 11.According to the trio’s friend, Mithilesh Kumar Das, a Class 10 student of Rashtra Bhasha Vidyalaya, 11 students, across different schools in the district, had gathered near the lake to belatedly celebrate Patel’s birthday, which was on Thursday.“Eight of us had reached the site at around 9 am, while three others, including me, joined them at around 11 am. We were preparing food, when six of the boys decided to take a bath at around 2 pm. We warned them not to enter the deep waters,” Das said.He added that the students assumed the lake won’t be deep. “Not long after three of them got into difficulty in deeper water. We tried to save them, but could not. The water was very deep and they drowned,” Das said.Local residents launched a rescue operation, before the SDRF were called in to assist. The bodies were subsequently recovered and sent to Jorhat Medical College and Hospital for post-mortem examinations.
