Cuttack, Oct. 7: Two students today drowned in the Mahanadi river at Dhabaleswar ghat here, from where boats ferry devotees from the city to a Shaivite shrine located on an island.

Police said the students were identified as Subhankar Panda, 16, a Class-X student of Ravenshaw Collegiate School, and Pritam Sethi, 18, a Plus Two first-year student of Christ College. Both the deceased were the residents of Sector 7 at Markatnagar.

Subhankar and Pritam reached the ghat, along with Ritesh Pradhan, 18, Plus Two first-year student of Raghunathjew College, on cycle around 11am. While Subhankar and Pritam had gone into the river, Ritesh stood watching them from the ghat with a camera in hand.

'When Ritesh saw his friends drowning, he shouted for help, trying to catch the attention of a few local boatmen present there. He later sought the police help as well,' said CDA Phase-II police station inspector in charge Dilip Swain.

Local people said that had it been a Monday, there would have been many boatmen, who would ferry devotees to Dhabaleswar temple - as in Hindu mythology, Monday is associated with Lord Shiv, the presiding deity of the shrine.

But today, there were very few boatmen on the ghat. They responded to Ritesh's howling but could do little to save both the boys as the water near the ghat was very deep.

'The Dhabaleswar ghat is not a bathing ghat, and the water there is about 20ft deep. The boys had evidently gone into the water without knowing it. And there were reportedly no one around to warn them,' said Cuttack fire station officer-in-charge S.K. Jena.

The Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force and the fire services team later recovered Subhankar's body. 'The body was recovered from downstream after over three hours of rescue operation, jointly conducted by two teams each from the fire services and the disaster rapid action force, including scuba divers. They are yet to trace Pritam's body,' Jena said at the time of filing the report.

'It is unfortunate that no warning signage has been put up at the ghat to caution against bathing there,' said Bidanasi resident Satyajit Roy.

Authorities said warning signage were put up only at Gadgadia and Jobra ghats on the Mahanadi and Devigada ghat on the Kathajodi, because of their vulnerability. But as no one generally uses Dhabaleswar ghat for bathing, they never gave it a thought of installing any such signage over there.

On October 2, last year, two persons of Pattapola died while bathing at Gadgadia ghat of the Mahanadi during the Solapuru Amma festival in the city.

On August 30 last year, three students of the National Institute of Fashion Technology died near the same ghat.

On August 25 last year, a Sri Sri University student drowned in the Kathajodi river at Bidyadharpur.