Berhampur, Jun 1 (PTI) Two girls drowned in the Bay of Bengal in Odisha's Ganjam district on Thursday, police said.

The incident happened at the Aryapalli beach where five girls of a family were bathing in the sea, they said.

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As the sea was rough, police patrolling the beach asked them not to go bathing but despite that, they went in, leading to the accident, said Sudeepta Kumar Sahu, the in-charge of the Marine police station.

While three of them were rescued by the local fishermen, two girls drowned in the sea, he said.

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The deceased were identified as Sapnarani Pandit, a resident of Kanishi, and Pragnyarani Tripathy of Harikrushnapur. While Sapnarani was a final-year undergraduate student, Pragnyarani appeared in her class 12 board examinations this year.

The body Sapnarani was fished out by the fishermen but the body of Pragnyarani could be recovered after eight hours by the Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF) with the help of a Coast Guard aircraft, officials said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)