2 Coaching Students Drown In Waterfall In Rajasthan's Kota: Cops

Two coaching institute students drowned in Gaipernath waterfall, police said on Friday.

NEET aspirant from Bihar and a 17 year old IIT aspirant from Madhya Pradesh drowned late Thursday evening.

Ravi Mehran, 20, from Madhubani, Bihar, and Naitik Soni, 17, from Madhya Pradesh, drowned in the waterfall late Thursday evening and their bodies were fished out Friday morning.

Ravi Mehran, preparing for NEET, and Naitik Soni, an IIT aspirant, had hired a scooty and had gone for a picnic at Gaipernath Kund, with another friend, a 17-year-old Mayank Mishra, who too is an IIT aspirant.

Kota collector OP Bunker and Kota city SP Kesar Singh Shekhawat reached the spot and supervised the search operation.

Ravi Mehran and Naitik Soni had been living in a hostel in the Indira Vihar area of the city for the last four months preparing for their exams.

Mayank Mishra, who too is from MP, has been in the city for the last seven months and was living in a hostel in Rajiv Gandhi Nagar area of the city.

The three had gone to a popular picnic spot near the city at Gaipernath waterfall (Kund) at around 4 pm on Thursday, an officer from RK Puram Police Station said.

While they were bathing in the pond, Naitik Soni went too deep into the water and started drowning. Ravi Mehran jumped after him to rescue him but the water was too deep - 35 feet - for him too, and both drowned, police said.

Mayank Mishra who too tried but could not rescue his two friends rushed back to his hostel and informed people there about the accident and the matter was reported to police.

Vishnu Shringi, in charge of divers' squad of Kota Municipal Corporation said they got to know about the incident around 10.45 pm on Thursday night but it was not possible to launch a search operation into the pond at night.

The search operation was started at the Kund at around 7 am on Friday and the two bodies were fished out by 10.30 am from around 25-foot-deep water, a few metres away from the spot, he said.

During inquiry it has been found that the three youths had had alcohol, Kota city SP Kesar Singh Shekhawat told the media.

Ravi Mehran's brother who also lives in Kota and takes coaching was not aware that his brother had gone for a picnic.

According to the police, Mayank Mishra initially tried to mislead the police into believing that the two youths had gone missing in the surrounding forest.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)