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Class 7 boy dies, schoolmate critical after swimming in check dam in Bengaluru

The villagers sent the body to the government hospital mortuary and called the police around 2 pm
Last Updated 29 December 2022, 00:51 IST

A schoolboy died and five other students were injured after venturing into the check dam of a lake in northeastern Bengaluru on Wednesday, police said. One of the boys is in a critical condition.

Junaid Pasha, a Class 7 student at Morarji Desai Residential School, Devanayakanahalli, is believed to have drowned in the check dam between noon and 12.30 pm.

He and 10 other students from the government-run school went to the check dam and started swimming. Within a short time, six of them began to drown.

Cattle grazers and other villagers dived into the water and pulled all the six boys out. But Pasha was unconscious. The villagers tried to save him through Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) and other methods, but it didn’t work.

They learnt that an ambulance was nearby, in Chikkaballapura. Two of the villagers took the boy to a hospital six km away, but it was too late. Doctors pronounced him dead on arrival, said Shobha K R, a home guard from the Yelahanka unit.

The villagers sent the body to the government hospital mortuary and called the police around 2 pm.

The boy’s parents, relatives and friends rushed to the school after learning about the tragedy. The school management washed its hands of the incident and blamed the boys instead for going to the check dam, Shobha said.

According to the home guard, the Block Education Officer (BEO), the school principal and other officials were keen to settle the matter by paying the boy’s family a compensation of
Rs 5 lakh.

“How did the children leave the school and the hostel? We have learnt that a relative of the principal was given the responsibility of taking the boys on the excursion. The incident happened because of his negligence,” she suggested.

The deceased boy lived with his mother, Raziya, and an elder brother in Subash Nagar near Vidyanagar, Northeast Bengaluru. Raziya is a home nurse.

Junaid had been studying at the residential school for a year now and had lived in the hostel.

While the Channarayapatna police have taken up a case under IPC Section 304 A (causing death by negligence) against the school management, the boy’s family accused the cops of not taking their complaint seriously and supporting the school staff.

The boy’s family and villagers staged a flash protest following the incident. Villagers say the check dam was cleaned recently and had 20-25 feet of water.

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(Published 28 December 2022, 20:54 IST)

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