In a major tragedy, six boys, all aged between 8 and 13 years, drowned while taking a bath in a rainwater-filled pond in Haryana's Gurugram on Sunday evening.
According to police, the children, identified as Durgesh, Ajit, Rahul, Piyush, Deva and Varun, all residents of Shankar Vihar Colony, in village Bajghera, which falls in sector 111, Gurugram, had gone to take a bath in the pond around 4 pm afternoon when the incident took place. The police said that their bodies had been fished out following a search operation which went on till late Sunday night.
Panic and wails gripped the area as the news pertaining to the tragic incident spread and the teams of police, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), state disaster response force (SDRF), civil defence and fire brigade personnel were rushed to the spot to recover the bodies.
The bodies were sent to the civil hospital and a post-mortem examination was conducted on Monday.
Meanwhile, the administration has made announcements in the nearby areas to check if any other children were missing and if required, the combing operation would be initiated again and water will be drained out from other pits if filled following recent heavy rains, Deputy commissioner, Gurugram, Nishant Kumar Yadav said.
The DC, however, also held that as per preliminary information, rainwater had collected in an area of about 5-7 acres which had several pits and the children had gone there to play in the water. When asked if the area, where the incident took place, was a construction site of a real estate project which got filled with the recent heavy rains, Yadav said that the police would look into these aspects and take action if any negligence was found.
Meanwhile, chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar announced a compensation of Rs 2 lakh each for the families of the deceased.
