Noida/Nainital: Two students of Amity University, Noida, who were on a picnic to Jim Corbett National Park, drowned in a river in Nainital district on Friday.Shubham Pandey (21) of Haldwani in Uttarakhand and Rishab Garg (21) of Panchkula in Haryana drowned in Ramganga river in Dhela village while four others from the university managed to save their life. Local residents said the group was driving around Ramnagar area when their vehicle got stuck in a culvert of the river. They got off the car and tried to cross on foot when they were swept away. Locals rushed to the spot and started rescue operations.S K Singh, circle officer, Ramnagar, said, "We got a call around 10pm on Friday and immediately deployed a rescue team. Rescue operations continued till 3.30am and we have handed over the two bodies to the families."The others who survived are Umaid Akhtar, Paras Mohan Sharma, Shubham Mehra and a woman, all 21-year-olds and students of Amity University, Noida. Pandey was a final year civil engineering student and Garg was a computer science student.Paras Mohan was a student of LLB while the rest were BTech students.Guide Mohammad Rafi, who was with them during the incident, said, "We got stuck in a causeway and the vehicle stopped as water entered its engine. We decided to wade through the river but the current was too strong. I held on to a boulder and was later rescued."Faheem, a local who was part of the rescue team, said, "We heard them scream and rushed to the spot. We informed the police and kept trailing the river bank."The students were staying in the Jim's Jungle Retreat resort in Dhela and at night, they went out to get food of their choice from another eating outlet when their car got stuck while crossing the Savalde river —a seasonal river in the area."Shubham Pandey, Umaid and Paras are flatmates. They used to stay together in a flat in Jaypee Greens Society of Noida's Sector 128. The others were their classmates," a IVth year B Tech student of Amity University told TOI. He confirmed that the female student was also saved by the locals."One of the students apparently started shouting and called for help, which alerted the locals who saved four of them. Our friends are on their way to Uttarakhand to meet them," the student said. Shubham's father Chandra Mohan Pandey couldn't control his grief. "My son is gone forever now. I pray to God that no parent gets to see such a day.""The university is closed for four days and the students might have left on a short trip as one of them was from Haldwani. None of them are hosteliers. It is a very saddening incident," Savita Mehta, vice-president, Communications, Amity university told TOI.

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