BENGALURU: Two boys who had gone to play in a water-filled pit dug for farmers drowned at Avathi village in Devanahalli on Tuesday. Tension prevailed for a while as families of the boys staged a protest against the hospital, alleging that it did not admit the victims on time. However, Devanahalli police controlled the situation.
The deceased are Venu (11), son of Channakeshava and Nagarathna, and Sandeep (12), son of Muddukrishna and Munirathnamma. They were residents of Avathi and were studying in a private school.
Their parents are farmers. Police said Venu and Sandeep went to take a dip in the pit in the afternoon after school. They jumped into the pit filled with rain water and got drowned as they did not know how to swim.
A passerby noticed the boys struggling and fished them out and alerted the villagers who rushed them to a government hospital. It is said the hospital delayed in providing treatment to the boys.
The villagers said the agriculture department dug the pits around the villages to provide water to farmers, but did not provide any fencing.