Boy dies after falling in river

Nirmal Mangar, TT, Gangtok, Oct. 13: A seven-year-old boy from Birbhum district in Bengal who had come with his parents on a vacation to Sikkim died after he slipped from a rock and fell into a river, yesterday at Dentam village in West Sikkim.

.“The boy climbed up a slippery rock on the bank of the Kalez river and slipped after losing balance. The parents of the boy were also present at the time of incident. Before they could do anything, the boy was swept away by the river. According to the parents ,the boy was very excited to see the river,” said DIG Mandeep Tuli, of Gangtok police headquarters.

Sushmit Chandra was a student of Class II at Niharika Primary School in Rampurhat, Birbhum. “It took around five hours to fish out the boy’s body. It was recovered 3km downstream near the Som Busty area (around 95km from here),” said a police source.

The boy’s family had reached Pelling in West Sikkim on October 11 for a holiday.

“I never thought that my vacation would turn into a nightmare,” said the boy’s father, Shrimanth Chandra.

The police have registered a case of unnatural death. The boy’s body was handed over to the family members after the autopsy was conducted at the district hospital in Geyzing.