A pall of gloom spread over the entire Waluj area as four minor boys, including two siblings, met a watery grave in a percolation tank in Bankarwadi in the Ranjangaon Shenpunji area on Thursday afternoon.
The deceased have been identified as Biswajeet Sukhdev Upadhay (12), Afroz Shaikh (14), Abrar Shaikh (12), and Kunal Anil Dalvi (12), all residents of Dattanagar, Ranjangaon Shenpunji, Waluj. This is the second incident of drowning of children in the Waluj area in the past few days. Earlier, a brother-sister duo, Chaitali Rahul Deshmukh (11) and Samarth Rahul Deshmukh (7) drowned in a water-filled pit on December 15 last year.
According to the details, Biswajeet, Afroz, Abrar, and Kunal were friends and had gone to play on the nearby ground on Thursday afternoon. As they did not return in the evening, Afroz’s father Javed and other relatives searched for them in the nearby area but could not find them. They went near the percolation tank at Bankarwadi and saw the clothes of the boys lying on the banks. However, they did not spot the boys or any bodies in the tank. Hence, they immediately informed the Waluj MIDC police.
PI Avinash Aghav, Ganesh Tathe, PSI Pundlik Dake, Shivaji Ghorpade, and Yogesh Shelke, along with the other residents, rushed to the spot. PI Aghav also informed the fire brigade. The fire brigade jawans jumped into the tank and took out the bodies of the boys from the tank. It was around 9pm when the boys were brought out of the tank. Jawans PK Chaudhary, KT Suryawanshi, PK Hazare, NS Kumawat, SB Mahale, YD Kale, and SB Shendge executed the search operation. The residents also helped the fire brigade find the boys. The family members of the deceased boys were in shock after seeing the bodies of the boys. The residents were moved by the screams and tears of the family members.
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