SURAT, JULY 29: In a tragic incident, seven boys aged between 12 and 17 drowned on Wednesday afternoon when they went for a bath in the monsoon-swollen Kansanagar lake in the Katargam area of the city. The Fire Brigade had fished out six bodies till the evening; the search was on for the seventh body.The bodies have been identified as those of Raju Pramod Barot, Yogesh Parshuram Dhamunshe (both 12), Pallav Balchandra Kadam (14), Tejas Hasmukh Tapodhan (15), Sanjay Sakharam Harne (16) and Virendra Jayanti Makwana (17). The body of Shakti Muralidharan (12) is yet to be traced. All the boys lived in the Rohit Falia area of Rampura, Katargam.Eyewitnesses said they had seen the seven boys playing cricket behind the Rampura slum with four others till about 12.30 pm. Subsequently, they all strolled off towards the Amroli bridge on Katargam Road, where the Kansanagar lake is located.While Naval, Kamlesh, Deepak and Pintu refused to go into the water, the seven - none of whom knew how to swim - reportedly got into difficulties immediately. Kamlesh and Pintu rushed back to the slum, which is about two km from the lake, and informed slum-dwellers and the Fire Brigade.By the time they arrived, however, there was no trace of the boys. Naval and Deepak, who had stayed behind, showed the rescuers the exact spot the boys had gone down. The six bodies were recovered within two hours.The accident sent a wave of grief through Rampura, whose residents described the 11 boys as fast friends. While Raju, Pallav, Tejas and Shakti were students of the V T Choksi School in Rampura, Sanjay was learning the art of polishing diamonds. Yogesh had dropped out of school, while Virendra had joined his father's tailoring business.
