Bengaluru: It was a regular college day for students of Sri Revana Siddeshwara Institute of Technology that starts at 9 am and ends at 4 pm. Second year students of Electronics & Communication Engineering had free hours post their lunch break and so eight of them, Chandrashekhar Shetty, Kham Patali M, Rajesh Karam Lab, Nandakumar K.R, Harisha, Nitin, Harinandan and Karthik thought it would be fun to have a swim at a quarry to beat the scorching heat before they get home.
One of the boys in the eight man group slipped and drowned at around 2.30 pm. Tragically the four others who jumped into the lake in a valiant attempt to save him, drowned too. Three other students who were part of the group and who did not know how to swim did not venture into the water, and alerted the police and the Fire and Emergency Rescue Services.The deceased have been identified as Chandrashekhar Shetty, 19, Kham Patali M., 19, Rajesh Karam Lab, 19, Nandakumar K.R., 19, and Harisha, 19. The accident was at Bettahalasur, 26 kilometers away from the city, under Chikkajala police station limits.
The quarry is said to be 90-100 feet deep. “Of the eight students, only two knew swimming. The three others(who are also dead) thought they would just stand where they could see the rocks under water while Nitin, Karthik and me did not venture into the water as we were scared,” Harinandan told Deccan Chronicle.
Only Nandakumar and Kham Patali knew swimming and when they saw Rajesh slipping from a rock and struggling for help in the water, the four friends jumped in to rescue him but could not. When no one came out of the water, the three on the banks informed the police and the fire service who rushed to the spot within 10-20 minutes said one of the students.
Around 8-10 fire force personnel with two fire tenders started the search. As there were no local divers available and the only diver available at Bettahalasur village was sick, the emergency services used two underwater cameras to locate the bodies. Four bodies were fished out by the evening, but the fifth body of Harisha could not be found. The search attempts were called off at 6:30 pm because of poor light.
“This is the third time people are dying here. Seven people have died here including the five now. The first time, it was one, the second time, it was two and now five students,” said Narayana Gowda, a member of Bettahalasuru Gram Panchayat. The four bodies have been sent to BR Ambedkar Hospital for a post-mortem. Family members of the drowned victims were inconsolable before the morgue of Ambedkar Hospital.
Bettahalasuru stone quarry is an old government-owned quarry which was leased out to private contractors before the International Airport Road was being planned after which the government stopped quarry operations, said B. Narayana, a social worker. There are huge rocks in it.
