A five-year-old boy drowned in a swimming pool in a residential society in Gurgaon on Wednesday evening, allegedly in the presence of lifeguards, according to the police.
The boy, identified as Mivansh Singla, was found floating in a 4-ft deep pool where children are prohibited, in the BPTP Park Serene housing society. The society has three pools of varying depths, the police added.
A case has been registered against the maintenance company and three lifeguards. The boy’s relatives and the residents’ association alleged that the lifeguards were preoccupied with their phones and did not notice Mivansh moving to the prohibited 4-ft deep pool.
Children are only allowed in the 1.5-ft deep pool, the police stated.
According to Sitaram, Mivansh’s grandfather, Mivansh, an LKG student, was initially in the 1.5-ft deep pool. He later moved to the deeper pool when his grandmother, who had accompanied him, returned to the flat after 6:15 pm to fetch a towel.
“The child’s safety was with the lifeguards, security guard, and club manager. Children are not allowed in the other two pools, and to ensure this doesn’t happen, four lifeguards and a security guard are always present. They were present today as well,” Sitaram stated in the First Information Report, naming the workers.
Sitaram held the general manager and vice-president of BPTP Pvt Ltd responsible for the pool’s safety.
“The death was caused because he swam in the four-feet deep pool due to the negligence of the BPTP Pvt Ltd, the management company, and the individuals mentioned,” Sitaram added.
The boy was rushed to Signature Hospital, where doctors declared him dead, said an officer at Sector 10A police station. A case has been registered against the maintenance company and three lifeguards under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) section 106 (death by negligence).
Mivansh is survived by his father, Binny Singla, who works with Maruti in Gurgaon, his mother Ashu Devi, and a 10-year-old sister.
Mivansh’s grandfather told The Indian Express that he picked up Mivansh from school around 1:45 pm. “He went down to the swimming pool around 4 pm and came back around 6 pm. He snatched the remote from me and was watching his favourite show. He and his grandmother went to the pool for a second time at 6:15 pm and I didn’t know about it because I was downstairs with my friends. Later, someone informed me that a child had drowned in the pool. In a few minutes, the word got out that it was Binny’s son,” he said.
“We sent him to a school in the same neighbourhood for safety purposes and the residential society was also supposed to be safe… His grandmother has not slept. She keeps saying she wants to see Mivansh,” Sitaram added.
Hemant Kumar Pal, vice-president of the Residents Welfare Association (RWA), stated that they had several disputes with the builder and BPMS, the management agency responsible for maintenance, over the past few years.
“When the incident took place yesterday, the lifeguards were not even aware of it as they were engrossed on their phones,” Pal said.
“The RWA had given instructions that children shouldn’t be allowed near the two deep pools without either a life jacket or parents’ supervision. We had shut the clubhouse owing to issues like pending services, problems in structure, and ventilation,” he added.
BPTP has declined to comment on the issue. The residential society spans a 43-acre complex with three separate projects and 1,500 flats.