Patna/Banka: A brother and sister drowned in a pond in Bihar’s Banka district on Monday morning, leaving their village in mourning and raising concerns about child safety around open water bodies. The incident occurred in Lathane village under Koriya panchayat in Chandan block. The victims were identified as Piyush Kumar, 8, a class three student, and his sister Kiran Kumari, 10, who studied in class five.
Family members said the children had left home to play and did not return for several hours. When they failed to come back, relatives and villagers began searching for them. The alarm was raised after their footwear was found near a village pond, prompting fears of an accident.
A search was launched, and both children were pulled out of the pond. With no ambulance arriving despite repeated calls, villagers transported the siblings on a motorcycle to Chandan hospital, where doctors declared them dead on arrival.
The children’s father, Krishna Yadav, who works as a labourer in Kolkata, collapsed after receiving the news and was later brought back to the village with the help of locals. Their mother, Ruby Devi, was inconsolable. Villagers said Piyush was the only son among four daughters.
Police from Chandan station reached the spot, took custody of the bodies and conducted postmortems before handing them over to the family. The siblings were cremated later in the evening after their father arrived. The deaths have cast a pall over the village, with residents describing the incident as a devastating reminder of the risks posed by unfenced ponds in rural areas.
