An 18-year-old boy drowned in a stone quarry at B Narayanpura in Mahadevapura, Bengaluru east on Tuesday morning.

The deceased, identified as Manoj Kumar—a daily wage labourer— was resident of 5th cross Motappa Layout. His parents are also daily wage labourers, the police said.

According to the police, Kumar along with his two friends went to the quarry at around 11 am to catch fish.

While trying to throw the fishing hook to an extreme end of the quarry, Kumar slipped and fell into the water. Even as he struggled to swim, his friends, who did not know swimming, ran away from the spot after informing a few villagers nearby. The villagers informed the police who in turn informed the Fire and Emergency Services, who rushed to the quarry and started the search operation.

The quarry work was abandoned many years ago and a lake was formed there that spread across half an acre. The search team fished out Kumar’s body at around 2.45 pm and sent it to the Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital for postmortem. “Every year, we see similar cases where men come here to fish but slip into the lake and drown,” said a senior police officer. The Mahadevapura police have registered a case of unnatural death and are investigating.