CHENNAI: A six-year-old boy drowned in a private swimming pool at Neelamangalam near Sriperumbudur on Wednesday evening.
The boy, along with his mother and two-year-old brother, had gone to the swimming pool for classes. After the classes got over, the mother was feeding them snacks. The victim, Sashwin Vaibhav, suddenly got up and left. When he did not return after a while, the mother went looking for him. She found him floating in the pool and raised an alarm.
Sashwin was pulled out of the pool with help from others and rushed to a private hospital in Potheri, where doctors declared him brought dead. According to the police, Sashwin was taking swimming lessons during the summer.
Manimangalam police recovered the body and sent it to Chromepet Government Hospital for a postmortem. A case was registered under section 174 of the CrPC based on the complaint from Sashwin’s father Nandhakumar.
A senior police officer said, “A case of death due to drowning has been registered. The boy’s father has alleged in his complaint that the instructors did not provide any safety equipment. We checked the CCTV footage and found safety equipment was in place. The boy had ventured into the adult area of the pool and drowned. It is unclear how the lifeguard missed him. We are waiting for the investigation report, and action will be taken after that.”