Gwalior: Two Medical Students Drown in Tighra Dam; Both Bodies Recovered
LATEST UPDATE (June 14, 5:30 PM): The 18-hour search and rescue operation at Tighra Dam has officially concluded. Authorities have recovered the bodies of both missing GRMC medical students. The article below has been updated to reflect these tragic developments.
What was meant to be a weekend picnic for a group of young medical students has ended in absolute heartbreak. On Saturday evening, a leisure trip to the Tighra Dam reservoir in Gwalior turned catastrophic when two second-year MBBS students from Gajra Raja Medical College (GRMC) Gwalior drowned after accidentally slipping into a heavily restricted, deep section of the dam.
A Picnic Turned Nightmare
According to local reports, a group of eight medical students – consisting of four Boys and four Girls – had traveled to the dam for an evening outing. While the rest of the group stayed up at the main picnic area, two of the students, identified as Ayush Shrivastava (a native of Muzaffarpur, Bihar) and Gopal Agrawal (from Bina, Sagar, Madhya Pradesh), went down toward the edge to bathe.
The group had unknowingly ventured into the “Kacchi Paar” area, a dangerous and strictly restricted zone located about 3 kilometers away from the main Boat Club. While near the edge, both Ayush and Gopal lost their footing on the rocky terrain and slipped. Before they could recover their balance, they were swept into a treacherous, muddy drop-off measuring nearly 40 to 50 feet in depth.
The Heartbreaking Discovery
Up at the picnic spot, their friends grew increasingly anxious when the duo did not return for a long time. Setting out to look for them, the classmates walked down to the rocky shore of Kacchi Paar. There, they discovered Ayush and Gopal’s shoes and clothes left neatly by the water’s edge. Realizing that something terrible had happened, the panicked students immediately alerted the local police.
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18-Hour Rescue Operation Concludes
The distress call triggered an immediate massive emergency response from the police and the State Disaster Emergency Response Force (SDERF). Rescue operations continued late into the night under grueling conditions using boats and high-power lights.
After a grueling 18-hour search, the tragic finality of the accident was confirmed. Gopal Agrawal’s body was recovered from the water during the intervening night between Saturday and Sunday. The search for the second student continued into the next day, and Ayush Shrivastava’s body was ultimately recovered at around 3 PM on Sunday afternoon. The families of both students have been notified, with relatives arriving in Gwalior to claim the bodies.
