A two-year-old boy drowned after he accidentally fell into a pool of stagnant sewage on a vacant plot near his house in Perumbakkam on Friday morning.
The Pallikaranai police said the incident took place around 7 a.m., when the victim, S. Vedhis, was playing near his house on Gandhi Cross Street. Minutes later, some of his relatives realised he was missing and started searching for him. Twenty minutes later, his aunt found him floating in the pool of sewage. He was immediately rushed to a private clinic, from where he was taken to a private hospital in Perumbakkam where he was pronounced dead on arrival, the police said.
The death of the boy, son of Suresh, a construction worker, and Vasanthi, has left residents shaken and angry. “Repair works have not been carried out on streets in the last three years in spite of repeated complaints. Stormwater drains, too, are not able to flush out rainwater into the nearby Pallikaranai lake,” a resident said.
The negligence of authorities had caused the boy’s death, residents charged, adding that the government should compensate the victim's family. A case under Section 174 of the Code of Criminal Procedure has been registered with the Pallikaranai police.
