5-year-old drowns in swimming pool at Gurgaon society, two lifeguards held

“One of them had been on the job for 10 days and the other for two days. Due to their negligence, they did not pay attention to the child, who went into the 4-foot section and drowned,” an officer claimed.

The boy was rushed to Signature Hospital where doctors declared him dead on arrival, said an officer at Sector 10A police station. A case has been registered against BPTP, maintenance company BPMS, three lifeguards and 10 others under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) section 106 (death by negligence).

Mevansh, an LKG student, is survived by his father Binny Singla, who works with Maruti in Gurgaon, mother Ashu Devi, and a 10-year-old sister.

His grandfather, Sitaram, told The Indian Express that he picked up the child from school around 1.45 pm. “He went to the pool around 4 pm and came back around 6 pm. He snatched the remote from me and watched his favourite show. He and his grandmother then went to the pool for a second time at 6.15 pm; 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, word got out that it was my grandson,” he said.

He added that Mevansh was initially in the 1.5-ft pool and moved to the deeper pool when his wife returned to the flat sometime after 6.15 pm to fetch a towel. “Our child’s safety was in the hands of 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,” he claimed in the FIR, naming the workers.

Sitaram said an official of BPTP Pvt Ltd was responsible for the swimming pool on the society premises.

“My grandson’s death was caused due to the negligence of BPTP Pvt Ltd and the management company,” Sitaram alleged.

BPTP has declined to comment on the issue.

Sitaram added, “We sent him to a school in the same neighbourhood for safety purposes and the residential society was also supposed to be safe… My wife has not slept. She keeps saying she wants to see Mevansh.”

The residents Thursday took out a candlelight march in memory of Mevansh.

Hemant Kumar Pal, the RWA vice-president, said they have had several run-ins with the builder and BPMS, the management agency responsible for dealing with the maintenance, over the past few years. “When the incident took place yesterday, the lifeguards were not even aware of it as they were engrossed in their phones,” Pal claimed.

“The RWA had given instructions that children shouldn’t be allowed near two deep pools without either a life jacket or parents’ supervision. We had shut the clubhouse owing to issues like pendency in delivering services, problem in structure and ventilation,” he added.

The residential society is a 43-acre complex with three separate projects and 1,500 flats.

In March 2023, the Gurgaon Deputy Commissioner issued an order — along with a checklist — directing swimming pool owners/operators to follow safety standards and protocols for running such pools as approved in the building plan.

Earlier, it was the sports department that issued licences. The DC said this was changed after it was reported frequently “that permissions are being delayed, resulting in inconvenience to the management/ users of these swimming pools”.