Two drown in Hebbal Lake

Two drown in Hebbal Lake
DH News Service, Bangalore:
The picturesque Hebbal Lake turned a watery grave for two teenage boys who drowned while swimming there on Sunday afternoon...


A search was on for the bodies of the duo till late Sunday night.

Ashoka (19) and Shanthamurthy (15) were among eight boys who ventured into the lake. Their friends Sunil, Mahendra, Raju, Damodara and two others, however, escaped death.

The boys, all of them in their teens, had gathered at Manorayanapalya ground where they played cricket between 10 am and 1 pm.

Soon after the game, they decided to go to the lake. They reached there by a BMTC bus and straightaway got into the water.

None of them apparently knew swimming. That was why six of them opted to take dips near the bank. But the two victims got adventurous and decided to go deep into the water.

Eyewitnesses said the duo was almost 200 metres away from the bank, inside the lake.

After swimming for about ten minutes, Sunil and Mahendra came out and watched their friends spash in the water. Soon they spotted two of them screaming for help and drowning. The boys on the bank noticed two washermen and sought their help to save their friends.

The washermen immediately jumped into the lake but their efforts went in vain as the boys drowned before they could reach the spot. In the meantime, some people informed the Amruthahalli police and the fire brigade about the incident who arrived at the spot in 20 minutes. The family members of the victims, too, were informed about the deaths the same afternoon.

Divers were engaged to retrieve the bodies but till late Sunday night they could not be traced, police sources said.

Ashoka, a resident of Chinnappa Garden, was a house-keeper at UB City.

Shanthamurthy was a student of Maruthi School at Chamundinagara.

Protection

A top fire department official said that the protection of those using the lake premises did not come under the jurisdiction of the department.

The Lake Development Authority and the Forest Department should jointly explore recruiting some trained experts to avoid such mishaps, he said.