Photo craze turns disastrous again: 3 boys drown in lake

Police manage to recover two bodies while another body is still missing

NT Correspondent Bengaluru

Three teenage r s wh o we n t for a swim in a lake near Kothanur met a watery grave. The incident occurred at Doddagubbi lake around 2:30 pm where a group of five friends went for a swim on Thursday. Three among them identified as Imran Pasha, 17, Mubarak, 16, and Sahil Ahmed, 16, died after drowning in the lake, police said.

All the youths are residents of Saraipalya in Hennur. Fire and emergency service personnel initiated a search operation to recover their bodies from the lake after the incident was reported to the Kothanur police. But the operation had to be suspended due to bad light on Thursday evening. On Friday, the police managed to recover two bodies while another body is still missing. According to sources, Imran had been to the lake last week and had posted photos on social media. On Thursday, he brought along four of his friends to the same spot to take more selfies.

“As the friends of Imran were excited after seeing the videos and photos uploaded on social media, they all decided to venture into the lake again to capture some more pictures,” a senior police official said. The boys had taken an autorickshaw to reach the lake from their area. “As Mubarak did not know how to swim, he called out to Imran and Sahil, who were taking pictures, for help. The duo jumped in to catch him, but could not find him. Soon both of them drowned too,” police said. The other two boys from the group who had stayed back, started screaming for help after which some locals jumped into the lake, but couldn’t trace the boys.

The police are yet to identify the bodies which were recovered. Efforts are on to find the third body, police said