Body of IIT student from Ladakh who drowned at Dharbandora found

Ponda: The body of Imtiyaz Hussain, a 21-year-old student of IIT Goa at Farmagudi, who drowned in a rivulet at Okamb, Dharbandora, on Sunday evening, was recovered by divers on Monday afternoon.

Ponda police said that Hussain, a native of Ladakh, had gone to the Okamb rivulet along with a group of eight friends for a picnic. The group had visited the riverside area behind the Sanjivani sugar factory to spend time together before returning to their home states, as their academic course had recently concluded.

While the group was swimming in the rivulet, Hussain allegedly went missing in the water.

Soon after the incident was reported, personnel from the Ponda police station and firefighters from the Ponda fire station launched a search operation. However, despite efforts on Sunday evening, Hussain could not be traced.

On Monday, police sought assistance from an NGO, whose trained divers recovered the body from the rivulet.

Police have registered a case of unnatural death under Sec 194 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023.