Two Mawlai residents drown in Umngi river

MAWKYRWAT, Aug 16: Two youths from Mawlai locality of Shillong lost their lives after drowning in the Umngi river, about 15 km from Mawkyrwat, in South West Khasi Hills District.
The incident occurred on Monday afternoon when a group of six youth from Mawlai, who had come to Umngi for a picnic, went swimming in the river.
The deceased were identified as Bankyntiewdor Pdahkasiej (21) from Mawlai Nongmali-3 and Bakordor Lyngdoh Mawphlang (22) from Mawlai Mawtawar.
Bankyntiewdor’s body was fished out on Tuesday morning by Lam, a tourist taxi driver from Umpung village who was travelling from Mawkyrwat to Shillong. Seeing people gathered at the spot, he offered to help and dived into the water and took out one body. He could not continue the search for the second body as he had to travel to Shillong with the passengers.
Bakordor’s body was finally recovered by a search and rescue team from Shillong on Tuesday evening.
The bodies were handed over to the family members following a post-mortem exemption since the case was that of accidental deaths.