Hyderabad: Tragedy struck a group of five Intermediate students who set out on Thursday to take pictures near a water-filled pit in a quarry to post on social media.
Two members in the group, Avinash and P.D.S. Charan, both aged 16 and first-year students of Narayana Junior College, drowned in the pit.
The two had gone to the place along with three others — B. Bharath, 17, K. Vamshi, 16, and K. Nikhil 18. Sources said the boys had the habit of posting pictures taken at different places on their Facebook pages.
On Thursday. Charan had hired a digital camera from a photo studio in Ramnagar for the outing. Police said the group met at Tarnaka and went to Ghatkesar by bus. They got down near the ORR toll plaza near Annojiguda, just ahead of Ghatkesar, and took some pictures in the village. They next went to the Satyapal Reddy stone crusher unit nearby but were prevented from entering by guards.
The boys then walked more than a kilometnre and entered the quarry through a broken fence. They went up to the water-filled pit and began taking pictures.
Avinash and Charan told the others that they knew swimming and entered the water to take more pictures, while the others stayed behind.
“After playing for a few minutes in the water and posing for pictures, Avinash suddenly started drowning. Charan also drowned. In few seconds they disappeared in the water,” one of the boys in the group said.
The others tried to search for them from the shore but failed. They then rushed to the village to inform locals. the police was called in and rushed to the spot.
It was too late for Charan and Avinash by then; the villagers retrieved both bodies after searching for more than an hour.
“The water could be more than 20 foot deep. We are verifying how they entered the quarry,” a police official said. Based on a complaint from their parents, a case under suspicious death(174 CrPC) was registered and the bodies were shifted to Gandhi Hospital for autopsy.
