Child drowns in farmhouse pool in Mehrauli

A two-and-a-half-year-old boy drowned after allegedly falling into a swimming pool at a farmhouse in south Delhi’s Mehrauli area on Wednesday evening, police said. A case has been registered against the farmhouse owner.

The child, son of Bengali Majhi, a mason from Bihar’s Bhagalpur, had stepped out of his home around 6.15 pm after eating, telling his mother he was going to visit his aunt who lived nearby. He never reached her. By 7 pm, his family was searching for him. His grandmother found his clothes lying near the swimming pool of the adjoining farmhouse. When the family rushed to the pool, the boy’s body was floating in the water. He was pulled out and taken to a nearby hospital, where doctors declared him dead.

The family had been living in the Mehrauli area for the past three months after relocating to Delhi in search of work. The child’s maternal grandfather, Vipin, who also worked as a mason at a construction site near the farmhouse alongside the boy’s father, described the sequence of events to the police.

“That evening, we were working at the construction site near the farmhouse while he was playing nearby. Around 6.15 pm, he went back home after telling us he was hungry,” Vipin said.

After being fed by his mother, the child stepped out again. He was familiar with the area and would regularly move between the houses and the work site to play, Vipin said. No one thought anything of it when he left. “When we saw the clothes near the pool, we rushed there, but it was too late,” Vipin said.