A teenager drowned in the swimming pool of a private club at Vennala on Thursday morning.
The deceased was identified as Anal Baiju, 14, of Pallath Road at Thammanam. Anal was among the 15-odd children who were in the pool as part of a summer swimming camp that got under way at the club on Tuesday.
Anal’s father Baiju, an insurance agent, was sitting by the pool at the time of the incident at 8.15 a.m. Three instructors were also present at the scene, two in the pool with the children, while the other had just got out of water.
The children were being trained along the shallow area of the pool. “Anal was taking breath-ins while swimming and was quick to grab the technique. But when he took more time than usual to come to the surface, we pulled him out and gave the usual first aid. He was in visible distress even as his father kept calling his name,” said club sources.
Though Anal was rushed to a nearby private hospital, he was declared brought dead around 8.30 a.m. The police shifted the body to the Ernakulam Government Medical College Hospital for post-mortem. The body was later released to relatives.
The Palarivattom police have registered a case for unnatural death invoking Section 174 of the CrPC. Though the police said the victim had water inside him, they added that the actual reason behind the death would be known only after receiving the post-mortem report.
“We are probing the case and as of now we haven’t found any ground for negligence,” said M. Ajaya Mohan, Sub Inspector, Palarivattom.
Asked whether the boy had any health issues, the police said the parents had ruled it out.