MAPUSA
Two minor siblings drowned in a temple pond in a tragic incident at Nayakawada in Verla-Canca on Wednesday evening.
According to reports, Chandani Rajawat (10) and her brother, Piyush (5), were from Madhya Pradesh and living along with their parents at Verla-Canca since the last four years. While the father is a security guard with a private company, the mother is a housewife.
While the exact sequence of events was unclear, the incident took place when Chandani, a student of Std 5 and Piyush, a student of Std 1, had gone for tuitions at about 2.30 pm.
When both siblings did not return home till 5.30 pm, the mother went to look out for them at the tuition classes and the tuition teacher informed her that they had not attended tuition classes that evening.
The mother then returned home when later in the evening, some children playing near the pond noticed the slippers and schoolbags of two children near the pond of Shri Rashtroli Narayan Devasthan.
Fearing something unusual, locals notified the Mapusa police, who in turn, alerted the fire services.
With both teams from the police and fire services at the site, firefighters first located Chandani’s body and later found the body of Piyush.
Police suspect that both siblings may have gone to the pond instead of going for tuitions, to pick up lotuses in the pond.
Police conducted a panchanama and sent both bodies to the District Hospital at Mapusa for an autopsy. PSI Viraj Korgaonkar is investigating the case.
