SIVAKASIIn a tragic incident, four boys, drowned in a pond while taking bath, in Vishwanatham village near here on Sunday.
The deceased were identified as Arunpandi (12) Rajapandi (13) Shanmugam (16), and Prakash (15). All of them were residents of Vinayagar Colony in Vishwanatham village near Sivakasi. According to the police, the boys drowned as they got stuck in the mud.
As it was a holiday, seven boys decided to have fun and went to take bath in the village pond.
According to the villagers, the pond had nearly six feet of water.
Arunpandi, Rajapandi, Shanmugam and Prakash dived into the pond and got stuck in the mud. Meanwhile the other two boys, Palpandi (11) and Karuppasamy (13), noticed their friends struggling and ran to the village screaming for help.
“The watchman of a nearby cracker unit and a few villagers rushed to the spot and jumped into the pond to rescue the boys, but they were too late,” a source said.
The villagers managed to take them out of the pond and rushed to Sivakasi Government Hospital, where doctors declared the children brought dead.
The friends and relatives of the boys were inconsolable and a pall of gloom descended on Viswanatham village.
Meanwhile, the Fire and Rescue Services personnel who arrived later searched the pond to check whether anybody else was still stuck in the pond.
Minister for Information and Special Programme Implementation K T Rajendra Balaji and Collector T N Hariharan visited Sivakasi Government Hospital and met the grief-stricken parents of the victims.
It may be recalled that five school girls had drowned in a pond at a village near Thiruchuli in November, 2013.