12-Yr-Old Drowns in Swimming Pool in Sanatnagar

A 12-year-old drowned in an unattended GHMC swimming pool at the Sanatnagar Labour Welfare Centre premises while trying to fetch a cricket ball that had fallen inside on Monday evening, police said. 

According to inspector A. Purender Reddy, the victim, S. Karthikeya, a Class 5 student, was playing cricket with four friends in the afternoon. The ball landed inside the swimming pool area. Karthikeya climbed a tree and entered the premises.

When he didn’t return, his friends went informed Karthikeya’s mother Maheswar, who immediately began searching for him and entered the swimming pool area. There was apparently no staff in the swimming



pool, which was not operational at that time. Local resident Pankaj Tripathi said, “We found Karthikeya in the pool. I pulled out the body at about 6 pm. It appears that he jumped into the water to retrieve the ball and drowned."

Karthikeya's father Singarapu Srinivas, a hairdresser, who was away at the time of the incident, said: "He was our youngest son. He went out to play and never came back.” Karthikeya went out after his mother, a GHMC sweeper, returned home at about 3 pm, Srinivas said. Police registered a case of death under suspicious circumstances and sent the body to Gandhi Hospital for post mortem.