Three boys drown in Umda Sagar lake

Hyderabad: Three boys drowned in Udma Sagar in Mailardevpally when they went to swim in the lake on Monday afternoon. They were found dead in the lake on Tuesday morning. Three of them, aged between 9 and 12 years, did not know swimming. They went out without informing their parents and got into the lake thinking it was shallow. The bodies were fished out by the local swimmers.

Mailardevpally police officials said that eight boys have drowned in lake this month alone. Two youngsters had died in the earlier months also. However, neither the police nor the irrigation department has put up any signboard prohibiting swimming in the lake.

The victims were identified as Mohd Chand Pasha, 12, Class IV student, his classmate B. Prasanth, 12, and their friend Md Sameer Pasha, 9, a Class II student. All of them were residents of Press Colony at Jalpally and were students of Government School at RGK in Laxmiguda.

According to the victims' relatives, the kids went out of home to play since it was vacation time. They went to the lake without informing anybody at home. “They went out after 1 pm. In the evening, their parents started searching for them. But, they could not trace them anywhere. On Tuseday morning, we got information from police that the bodies have been found in the lake,”said a relative of Chand Pasha.

On Monday night, locals passing by the lake had found a dead body floating in the lake. “We got information from the locals. We could not identify the body in the night and we checked if there was any missing case. Since Jalpally was not in our limits, we could not get the information that the boys had been missing.

On Tuesday morning, two other bodies were also found in the body. Later, the parents came and identified the children,” said Mailardevpally Inspector S. Venkat Reddy. According to the locals, some parts of the lakes are deep and marshy. All the kids got into the water unaware of the depth. They also did not know swimming.

The locals have demanded that the GHMC and irrigation department put up warning boards prohibiting youngsters from entering the lake.