Five students, their teacher drown Malkaram lake

HYDERABAD: Five students and their teacher drowned in Jawaharnagar’s Malkaram lake. Police said that they were among a group of students that Abdul Rahman Jahed, manager of Masjid-e-Hanif, a madrasa at Amberpet, had invited for a function at his house. The teacher who drowned, Yahya Shahed, was Rahman’s son.

Locals complained that the municipal authorities had refused to fence the lake, where unwary picnickers are known to drown. They said two brothers had drowned in the lake in May and three persons had died in March.

According to police, 27 male students and nine girls showed up Saturday morning at Rahman’s residence for a housewarming ceremony. Five of the students, Jafar, 10, and Syed Ismail, Mohammed Rehan, Ayan and Mohd Sohail, all 11 years old and residents of Amberpet, decided to go to the nearby lake to play in the water, at around 11.30 am.

Once in the lake, they apparently entered deep water and began drowning. “As they started shouting for help, the other students alerted the teacher. Yahya Shahed, 25, rushed to the place and jumped into the lake in an attempt to save the children. Unfortunately, he drowned along with the five students,” said Jawaharnagar inspector  K. Chandra Shekar, adding that the group failed to judge the depth of the lake and none of them knew how to swim.

The bodies of the six victims were retrieved from the lake and shifted to Gandhi Hospital morgue for post-mortem. Police booked a case following a complaint from Mohammed Saleem, 53, muezzin from Masjid-e-Tayyaba, CPL Amberpet.

A local resident said, “The lake is spread over one acre. We have been raising the issue in the media and have asked the authorities to take up fencing around the lake but in vain. Even after several instance of drowning, the lake has been left without a fence,” said Ramaiah, a local resident.