Gulu — GULU residents were on Tuesday left dumbfounded when a student drowned in a fish pond. Lawrence Arop, 21, a Senior Three Student of Awere Secondary School had gone to the pond to swim with his schoolmates on his way home.

"We were from school at about 4:30pm when Arop said he wanted to learn how to swim. I hesitated, but found it impossible to let him go alone," Billy Ojok, a friend to Arop narrated. "When we arrived, he dived into the pond and disappeared," Ojok added.

The Gulu Police fire brigade and the residents searched the pond for over five hours on Wednesday to retrieve Arop's body from the pond in Ariago, Laroo division in Gulu municipality.

The pond belongs to the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries.

Laroo division chairman Moses Abonga urged the ministry to fence off the pond in order to avoid similar future occurrences.

He called on parents and the local leaders in the area to monitor and discipline their children.

Area Local Council II secretary for information, Benson Obita, said unruly students from Gulu Central High, Sir Samuel Baker School, Awere Secondary School and Gulu Modern Secondary School usually flocked the pond.

"They have named the pond, Kaya, literally meaning, bite-me beach."

Obita said the students were using the venue as a center for smoking opium, sexual intercourse and nude dancing.

"They abuse you and even beat you if you warned them against the the practice," he noted.

Gulu's assistant fisheries development officer, David Otto Alima said the pond was still under construction, adding that when completed, it would be a fisheries research centre. The body was buried at his ancestral home in Labora village, Koro sub-county.