Shillong/Guwahati, Dec. 19: A sightseeing tour turned tragic this morning at a tourist spot in Meghalaya's West Jaintia Hills, as Rituraj Phukan, 27, son of Assam Congress legislator Pranati Phukan, drowned following a boat capsize in the Umngot in Shnongpdeng village.

Shnongpdeng, under the Amlarem civil subdivision, is around 54km from Jowai.

Jowai, the district headquarters of West Jaintia Hills, is around 65km from here. Dawki is around 90km from Shillong.

West Jaintia Hills additional deputy commissioner D.M. Wallang said Rituraj and two friends had come to the village last evening. Around 7am today, the three went sightseeing.

"They saw a few boys rowing a boat and requested them to take them to the bank of the Umngot river," he said. He said Rituraj and the two others reportedly asked one of the boys who rowed the boat to take them upstream.

The water level in the upper reaches of the river is reportedly deeper.

"The deceased person reportedly stood up in the boat in the middle of the river. This led to the boat capsize," Wallang said.

The boy who was rowing the boat, along with a few villagers who were in another boat on their way to the betel fields, tried to rescue the trio. However, only two of the three could be rescued while Rituraj drowned.

Quoting the villagers, Wallang said rowing was generally not allowed in the river before 8am and after sunset because of heavy breeze.

Rirutaj's body was retrieved with the help of villagers and police personnel and later brought to Dawki.

Considering the inquest report and based on the family's request, Wallang said post-mortem was exempted, and Phukan's body was taken to Guwahati. Sources said in the recent past, no untoward incident involving tourists has been reported from Shnongpdeng village.

Rituraj's mother is a former Assam cultural affairs, handloom and textiles minister and MLA from Naharkatia constituency in Dibrugarh.

He was recently elected national delegate of NSUI from Assam. "We are very pained at the death of a young leader," Assam PCC secretary Imdad Hussain said in Guwahati.

Rituraj's friend Rahmid Waris, who lives at Panbazar in Guwahati, was supposed to go for the tour but could not make it. "When I met him at Beltola at his elder sister's marriage on December 5, he and a few other friends asked me to join them for the tour. I was supposed to go but could not make it at the final hour," Rahmid told The Telegraph this evening. He first met Rituraj in 2011 while studying in Bangalore.

Rituraj did his schooling in DPS, Digboi and Miles Bronson Residential School (Borjhar, Guwahati). He passed Class XII from Kaziranga English Academy, Guwahati, before moving to M.S. Ramaiah College of Law in Bangalore where he did his LlB in 2013.

"He came to Guwahati last year and joined NSUI," Rahmid said. Rituraj lived with his mother at the MLA hostel at Dispur.