Held my brother’s hand, but watched him drown, says 8-year-old survivor

Gurgaon: “I was in the pond too, bathing and swimming, when I suddenly saw my elder brother and a friend struggling after they drifted into deep water. I swam towards them and managed to touch my brother’s hand in an attempt to save him. But he slipped away before I could get a proper grip. He drowned in front of me,” eight-year-old Aditya told TOI, recounting the horror of Thursday evening.

“I froze and began to go under too, but another friend who had come with us pulled me out. He saved me, but I could not save my brother.” Four boys, aged eight to 12, had scaled the wall of a golf course behind Ambience Mall near DLF Phase 3 around 6pm. Two of them — Adarsh (10) and Krishna Kumar (12) — drowned, while Aditya and Ankush (12) survived. Police are yet to register a case, but have begun probing how the boys entered the premises.

Both Adarsh and Krishna Kumar were residents of Nathupur village.

The boys had gone out to play in a nearby park when, as temperatures soared, they decided to get into the pond. The two boys who drowned moved towards the deeper side within minutes of entering the water. Ankush pulled Aditya to safety and the two ran to security guards nearby and raised the alarm. Police rushed to the spot and recovered the bodies shortly after.

Rajiv Kumar, Adarsh’s father and a sweeper by profession, had left for work before his son woke up that morning. “I did not even get to see him before leaving. I never imagined I would never see him again,” he said. “He was a very sweet child. Just 15 days ago, I bought him a bicycle and he was so happy. Our lives will never be the same.” Apart from his parents, Adarsh is survived by two elder sisters and his younger brother Aditya.

His sister Jyoti recalled how the boys slipped out despite their grandmother’s warnings. “Around 4pm, two of their friends came to call them. My grandmother asked them not to go, but they left,” she said.

Krishna Kumar’s father, Bunty Kumar, broke down while recounting how he learned of his son’s death. Having returned home from work to find his son missing, he was taken by police without explanation. “When we reached near the pond, I saw my child lying there covered with a cloth. I was shattered,” he said.

The bodies were handed over to the families after postmortem examination on Friday. No FIR had been registered till the filing of this report.