16-yr-old boy falls into well at Azad Maidan, drowns

Taking a short cut to Azad Maidan for his cricket coaching classes on Tuesday ended in a tragedy for a 16-year-old boy.

Taking a short cut to Azad Maidan for his cricket coaching classes on Tuesday ended in a tragedy for a 16-year-old boy.

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Naved Naushad Shamsheen jumped over the maidan’s boundary wall, slipped and drowned in a well in the corner of the ground. The well was loosely covered by a metal sheet and gave way when the boy fell on it.

Every day Shamsheen, a resident of Readymoney Compound Alhabib building at Byculla, used to leave his house at 6.30am for his cricket coaching at Azad Maidan. He would reach the ground at 6.45am. But on Tuesday, Shamsheen did not turn up for the classes.

An officer from the Azad Maidan police station said they got a call from the locals saying that they saw a teenager fall inside the well. The police fished out the boy’s body out of the well.

Shamsheen was rushed to the GT Hospital where he was declared dead on arrival. The body was handed over to the family after the post-mortem.

Manish S, an eyewitness, told the police that he saw a boy standing on the well’s boundary shouting for help. When Manish rushed to the well, he found a cricket bat and bag on the wall and saw someone drowning.

Police said Shamsheen was a student of Class 9 of Barda High School in Mumbai Central. “He might have slipped and drowned,” said the officer, requesting anonymity. “We are inquiring to verify if this is how Shamsheen lost his life,” said Cherring Dorje, deputy commissioner of police (zone I).

“We have registered a case of accidental death and are recording statements of Shamsheen’s playmates,” said Dorje.

Shamsheen’s coach Baldev, who refused to give his last name, said he was out of Mumbai and the net practice was closed for Diwali vacations. But the boys used to come to practice. “The boys called me up after they recognised Shamsheen’s bag on the well,” said Baldev.

“I had told Shamsheen to come from the entrance behind Sterling Cinema but he used to take a short cut,” said Baldev, who coaches 30 boys of the under-14 and under-16 groups.