Hyderabad: 24-year-old drowns while filming TikTok video

Hyderabad: The craze for making videos on TikTok mobile application proved fatal for 24-year-old Begari Narsimlu He drowned in lake Thumar where he and a cousin had gone swimming and were taking videos of themselves doing so. The incident came to light when the videos made by the two went viral on Thursday.

The lake is situated in Dulapally under Pet Basheerabad police station limits on Tuesday. As it occurred in the evening hours, the police could not fish out the body till Wednesday.

According to the Pet Basheerabad police, Narsimlu, a resident of Sajjapuram village in Kohir mandal of Sangareddy district, worked as a labourer.

He was visiting his cousin Prashanth in Dulapally. On July 9, Narsimlu and Prashanth went to Thumar lake to bathe in the evening. After getting undressed, they took out the former’s mobile phone and made some videos of them bathing.

Minutes later, Narsimlu, who did not know how to swim, had entered deep waters, while Prashanth stayed close to the shores of the lake. Narsimlu was soon out of his depth and Prashanth, who was not a swimmer either, could not rescue his drowning cousin. All he could do was to alert the locals who then informed the police about the incident, said the police.

Pet Basheerabad sub-inspector D Mahesh, who is investigating the case said: “Narsimlu and Prashanth were recording their bathing videos on TikTok application. The former went deep inside the waters and drowned. The body was fished out at noon on Wednesday and was handed over to his family after the autopsy at Gandhi Hospital mortuary.”

Based on a complaint from Narsimlu’s paternal uncle B, Ashok, a case of suspicious death has been registered by the Pet Basheerabad police, who are verifying the videos recorded by the youngsters to find out if the incident was also captured on the phone.