In a tragic mishap, a 15-year-old boy, studying class IX in a local school drowned while swimming along with his friends in a private swimming pool at Pon Nagar near here on Saturday.
Police said the boy Dileepan had gone for swimming in the swimming pool in a house in the afternoon with his friends and suffered a head injury after he slipped and hit against the steps in the pool.
Others who were swimming in the pool noticed his condition only about half an hour later and by the time, he drowned, the police said. On being alerted, the boy’s parents took him to a private hospital, where he was declared brought dead.
The police later recovered the body and sent it to Government Hospital here for post-mortem, police said. The pool was owned by Shanmugamurthy, one of the 15 accused arrested in connection with sexually abusing two minor girls last year. Facing charges under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, he was on bail, police said.
After learning that he was letting out the pool to the public without any valid licence, police had twice registered cases against him and he managed to evade arrest, police said. After the incident, police registered a fresh case and launched an investigation.