12-year-old Drowns in BHEL Swimming Pool in Tiruchy

Nobody noticed his absence as the pool was teeming with kids on summer vacation.

TIRUCHY: A 12-year-old boy, son of a policeman, drowned in a swimming pool near a recreation club on the BHEL premises here on Saturday.

According to police, N Vestlyraj had gone to the pool with his friends. Since he did not know swimming properly, one of his relatives, Simon, and his two sons accompanied Vestlyraj.

While Vestlyraj was bathing with his friends, Simon, a BHEL employee, had warned the boy to be careful, but he crossed the children’s area and entered the deep side of the pool.

Since a large number of children were in the pool as schools were closed for the summer vacation, neither trainer nor Simon noticed the absence of Vestlyraj . After sometime, someone noticed his body floating and raised an alarm.

On information, police rushed to the spot,  retrieved the body and sent it to the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Government Hospital for a postmortem.

Though the swimming pool was for only BHEL employees, the boy was allowed to get in because his grandparents were retired employees of the company.

When contacted, a senior BHEL official said the swimming pool remained open on all days.

“Without lifeguard and trainer, no one was allowed to get into the pool. There were clear instructions that those learning to swim should be allowed to get into the waters only under the supervision of the trainer. So, some other reason may have led to the death of  Vestlyraj’,” he added.

Vestlyraj’s father Nixon Prabhu was away in connection with the security arrangements for Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa’s election rally on Saturday. He is a head constable attached to the Gandhi Market Police Station and lives at Vignesh Nagar in Kattur near Thiruverumbur.