Five boys drown in Tavarekere lake

Death came by drowning to five school-going boys from Tavarakere on the outskirts of Bangalore here on Thursday evening, though it remains unclear whether they were out swimming in the very lake in which they met a watery end.

The tragic incident comes a week after four Bangalore youths, including a teenage girl, drowned in a Bidadi lake where they had gone to take a dip after visiting a nearby shrine. On January 28, two youths had drowned in the Hebbal lake. On March 2, four teenagers including a girl had drowned in the Nelligudde lake near Bidadi, on the outskirts of the City. In Thursday’s incident, the boys who died have been identified as I V Somashekhar, Ajith Kumar, Suhel Khan, Vishwaraj and Praveen Kumar. All aged 9 and from Class IV of a government primary school in Tavarakere, the boys’ parents are daily wage labourers. The Tavarakere police suspect the five school children did not know swimming and were perhaps playing in the water when they unmindfully went to a deeper part of the lake whose bed has many deep pits. Failing to negotiate the swirling water, they drowned. According to police sources, the five boys went to Gangammanakere after school on Thursday evening. After reaching the lake, barring Praveen, the rest took off their school uniforms and then waded into the water at the shallow end.

Frantic search
When some local residents found the uniforms by the bank, they frantically looked for the boys, but to no avail. Sensing that the boys might have drowned in the lake, the desperate residents made emergency calls to the police who reached the spot along with Fire and Emergency Service personnel and subsequently sought the assistance of a rescue team from the Fire Force staff at Mayo Hall here. A police officer suspected that except for Praveen, the other four boys left behind their school uniforms on the lake bank and entered the water.

Rescue effort
“It could be that when Praveen saw them flailing their limbs in the water and shouting for help, that he jumped into the water in an effort to rescue them,” the officer said, adding that the recovery of four sets of uniforms suggested that is what might have happened. “Only Praveen had his uniform on,” he said. According to the officer, the boys may not have attended school since their school bags were not found by the lake.