MUMBAI: A 10-year-old boy drowned after entering an excavated pit on private property that was filled with water. The boy was accompanied by two other children for a swim in Andheri (West) on Monday afternoon. His body was recovered by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) after a nearly three-and-a-half-hour search operation.The incident was reported at 1.15 pm at the Wireless Compound in Juhu Gully, behind Jagrut Hanuman Temple in D.N. Nagar. According to the Mumbai Fire Brigade (MFB), two to three children from a nearby slum had gone to the lake to swim when one of them disappeared underwater.Fire brigade personnel rushed to the spot and launched a search operation. Teams from the police, the NDRF and a 108 ambulance service were also mobilised. Rescue personnel searched the water body for several hours before the NDRF located and retrieved the boy at 4.52 pm.He was immediately taken to Cooper Hospital, where doctors declared him brought dead, officials said. The deceased was identified as Dinesh Baswaraj Harichand (10).Police officials said the pit is located on private property and are investigating how the children gained access to it. They are also probing the circumstances that led to the drowning.Civic officials have repeatedly appealed to parents to ensure children do not venture into such excavated pits, ponds, quarries and other water bodies, where water levels rise sharply during the monsoon, making them particularly dangerous even for those who know how to swim. Former corporator Mohsin Haider alleged that there weren’t adequate safely precautions taken at the construction site. “There should have been a boundary wall indicating that no one is allowed beyound a certain point which wasn’t the case. The security staff should have alerted if the children went inside the site where work was going on. This is a very tragic event and the local community is completely shaken,” said Haider demanding that the boy’s family be provided with compensation.The deceased lost his father two years ago said locals at the site. “His mother works as a household and the entire family is broken and distraught on loosing the child,” said Haider.
