A Class XI student is being feared drowned in the Hooghly river as he went traceless while taking a bath on Saturday evening in Naihati of North 24-Parganas.

Police have undertaken a search operation in the Goalpara ghat and adjacent stretches of the river for Anurag Mehta, 17, a student of Gouripur Hindi High School.

Anurag could not be traced till Sunday evening.

Police and family sources said that on Saturday afternoon Anurag, a resident of Goal Fatak area, got into the river with four friends at the Goalpara ghat of the river. The boy was suddenly swept away by a swift current in the water, said one of his friends who was taking a bath with him.

“It happened all of a sudden. Something like a tidal wave came and we all tried to duck it. But Anurag went missing after that....We tried to find him, but he couldn’t be traced.”

Some local residents informed Naihati police immediately who rushed to the spot and launched a search operation. The divers of the state disaster management were also pressed into action to trace the student.

“It appears that the boy was swept away by the strong tidal current in the river.... we are trying hard to recover the body,” an official of the disaster management team said on Sunday evening.

Seven more Covid deaths

Bengal on Sunday logged 1,011 new Covid-19 infections, 2,389 recoveries and seven deaths.

The state now has 15,314 active cases, including 290 in hospitals, according to the bulletin. Recovery rate was 98.25 per cent and mortality rate 1.02 per cent on Sunday.

Case positivity rate stood at 7.78 per cent on a day when 12,989 samples were tested.

On Sunday, 3,41,141 booster doses were administered across Bengal.

In all, 90,50,837 booster doses have been administered in the state so far.

Since the pandemic broke out in 2020, the state has recorded 20,93,891 Covid-19 cases, of which 20,57,211 have made full recoveries and 21,366 have died so far.