Man ‘sneaks’ into MCD-owned pool, temporarily shut to public, for swim with friends, drowns

The police have registered an FIR under Section 106(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). “The FIR was registered on the basis of enquiries and the medico-legal certificate. An investigation is in progress,” a police officer said.

By: Express News Service

New Delhi | Updated: August 12, 2025 07:01 AM IST

The incident took place when officials from the Revenue Department arrived to evict his family from their hut built on cooperative society land.

A man drowned while swimming in a pool, owned by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), in Shalimar Bagh on Sunday evening even as the facility was allegedly temporarily closed to the public when the incident took place, said police.

Officers identified the deceased as Ankit Kumar (25), who had entered the pool inside a gymnasium, in BK-2 block with his friends around 5.30 pm on Sunday. Kumar was pulled out of the water by his younger brother and others before being rushed to Fortis Hospital, where doctors declared him dead, the police said. The body has been kept at the mortuary in Babu Jagjivan Ram Memorial Hospital for further proceedings.

According to the police, the MCD pool in North West Delhi was being managed by a private operator on a contract basis. “The operator had not cleared pending electricity bills for a long time. The power supply was cut off some time back and the pool was temporarily closed,” said a police officer.

Senior police officers said the statements of Kumar’s friends and staff members present at the facility at the time of the incident are being recorded. They added that the probe will determine whether the death was accidental or if any foul play was involved.

The investigation is looking into how Kumar and his friends managed to gain access to the premises even as a security guard was deployed at the site, an officer said. Investigators are also reviewing CCTV footage from the premises to reconstruct the sequence of events leading up to the drowning and to establish how the group entered the facility. The police have not ruled out possible lapses in security, or negligence on the part of the pool’s management.

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