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11-year-old drowns during summer camp in MBMC pool
An 11-year-old boy drowned at a Bhayandar summer camp; police booked the agency for negligence as lifeguards were reportedly absent.
THANE: An 11-year-old boy drowned at the Loknete Gopinath Munde Sports Complex on Sunday morning. The sports complex is run by the Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) in the Golden Nest area of Bhayandar. Police said MBMC had given the sports complex on a contract basis for its operations, but the contractor involved the agency, a third party, to conduct the summer camp. Following the incident, the Navghar police booked the authorities from the private agency for negligence.
The deceased, Granth Hasmukh Mutha, was a resident of Planetaria Complex. Jayesh Gada, Mutha’s family friend, said Mutha’s parents had enrolled him in a summer camp organised by a private agency after seeing an advertisement about it a month ago. It had been seven days since he was in the camp.
During the summer camp, the boy went to the swimming pool and accidentally drowned. Nobody noticed him until his body surfaced. “It is painful to think that no one noticed a missing child from a group he had been attending regularly for the past week,” Gada added.
Hasmukh Mutha, the child’s father, received a call after 11.45am from another child’s parent, asking him to rush to the hospital. “It is sheer negligence on the part of the authorities. They didn’t even notice when a little child went missing. Why don’t children have life jackets? We trusted them to take care of our son. We want strict action to be taken. If not, more lives could be lost due to such negligence,” he said.
The management asserted that lifeguards were present during the camp. “CCTV footage shows no lifeguard was present at the time. An FIR has been registered for negligence and culpable homicide not amounting to murder. An investigation is currently underway.” said SPI Dhiraj Koli.
MBMC officials were unavailable to respond in the matter.
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