Sudakshina (left) and Riya Chakrabarty

Two sisters drowned while bathing in a pond close to their house in Sodepur’s Natagar on Monday morning.

Neighbours took Sudakshina Chakrabarty, 11, and sister Riya, 9, to Panihati State General Hospital, where doctors declared them dead on arrival.

But the family members of the siblings said the children could have been saved had the hospital authorities been more prompt in treating them. They went on the rampage and assaulted two doctors and two ward boys, alleging negligence on the part of the hospital.

“The sisters could not swim. The family should not have allowed them to go to the pond without an escort,” said P.K. Tripathi, the additional superintendent of police of Barrackpore.

Neighbours said Sudakshina and Riya, students of local schools, had gone to the pond around 9am.

When they failed to return after a half an hour, father Pradip, who works in a local factory, started looking around for the duo.

When his search drew a blank, Pradip raised an alarm. “The neighbours soon gathered around the pond and spotted Sudakshina’s body, that had surfaced by then. A few youths dived into the water and fished out Riya. Both were rushed to hospital,” said Pradip.

Refuting the relatives’ allegation that the girls were breathing when brought to the hospital, K. Halder, the superintendent of Panihati State General Hospital, said: “They could not have been alive after remaining under water for more than 20 minutes.”