PUNE: Bodies of two more Chennai boys were recovered on Thursday afternoon, a day after they drowned with another teenager in Katarkhadak water reservoir in
Mulshi taluka, about 40km from here.
A team of district disaster management committee and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) fished out the bodies after over a four-hur-long search. The teams began operations early in the morning.
“A team from the district disaster management committee fished out the body of Saravana Kumar (13) around 1pm. The NDRF team brought out the body of
Santhosh Ganesh (13),” said inspector Suresh Nimbalkar from the Paud police station.
The residents of the area had recovered the body of Danish Raja K (13) within 20 minutes after the accident on Wednesday. The three schoolboys from Chennai had come to Katarkhadak for a weeklong summer camp organized by an
NGO with 17 others, including Danish’s elder brother Dilkash Raja. They are/were students of ECI Matriculation School in Tamil Nadu capital.
The bodies of the three deceased students were handed over to their parents after post-mortem late on Thursday evening. “They will take the bodies to Chennai for the last rites,” Nimbalkar said.
The Pune rural police have registered an offence against four persons — an organizer, the local director of the NGO and two teachers — under Section 304A (causing death due to negligence) of IPC. “We will carry out thorough investigations and decide on the course of action,” Ganaptrao Madgulkar, the Dehu Road sub-divisional police officer, told TOI.
He said the organizers and teachers were responsible for the safety of the students at the camp. “It seems they did not take proper precautions,” Madgulkar said.
Shankar Chavan, the deputy sarpanch of Andhale village near Katarkhadak, had provided accommodation and food to the students. He said, “I was not an organizer of the camp. I had received a call from a volunteer of the NGO, requesting me to provide accommodation and food to the children.”
He said, “I was at Chiplun in Konkan for my niece’s marriage when the tragedy struck. As soon as I got the information about the accident, I left Chiplun,” he said.
Chavan said the teachers accompanying the students should have prevented the latter from entering the water. “It was their responsibility, not mine,” he said.
Sindhu Malpote, a resident of Katarkhadak, had prepared food for the Chennai students on the request of Chavan. “The students enjoyed their stay till the tragedy. The dough I made for them for dinner is still in my refrigerator,” she said.
Nagesh Gaikwad, the resident nayab tehsildar of Paud tehsil office, said he had sent a detailed report on the accident to the district collectorate. “We have told the local bodies to put up precautionary boards near hotspots, including Katarkhadak, Pimploli and back waters of Mulshi dam,” he said.
