Student drowns in a quarry during Instagram reel-inspired photo outing

Hyderabad: A photo outing by a group of students, inspired by Instagram reels, ended in tragedy after an 18-year-old engineering student drowned at a quarry in Malkaram near Jawahar Nagar in Medchal-Malkajgiri district on Friday. HYDRAA's Disaster Response Force (DRF) recovered his body at night.

Police identified the deceased as Pavan Sai, a first-year BTech student at Geethanjali Engineering College.

A group of 12 students from the college, including three girls, visited the quarry after seeing the location featured in Instagram reels and finding it suitable for photographs.

Two of the students entered the water and sat on a rock to pose for pictures. One of them then said he would go to another rock, touch it and return. While swimming back, he drowned, as he did not know how to swim.

The DRF control room received information about the incident on Friday evening and alerted nearby teams. Two DRF teams rushed to the spot and began a search as darkness fell.

Rescuers struggled to take a boat into the quarry pit, which was surrounded by steep rock faces. They eventually used a boat to search the water. The team recovered Pavan Sai's body in about 10 minutes.

Jawahar Nagar police took custody of the body and have begun an inquiry.