Date:26/04/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/04/26/stories/2008042659310500.htm

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Teenager’s birthday celebrations turn tragic

Staff Reporter

Two teenaged boys drown in Shamirpet lake

HYDERABAD: Birthday celebrations of a teenager turned tragic after he and his cousin drowned in Shamirpet lake on Friday afternoon.

Three Intermediate first-year students – G. Akshay, G. Abheesht and Rahul aged around 16 -- residents of Kummarguda in Secunderabad, came to the lake on two motorcycles.

Akshay and his cousin Abheesht went for a swim, but drowned even as their friend Rahul who watched helplessly, raised an alarm. However, none was around to rescue them.

Shamirpet police station Sub-Inspector N. Surender said that Akshay told his parents that he and his friends were going to a resort on the city outskirts to celebrate his birthday, but instead headed to Shamirpet lake for a swim.

Police later retrieved the bodies with the help of expert swimmers and shifted them to the Gandhi Hospital mortuary for conducting autopsy. The teenagers were students of a private college in Uppal, according to police.

Commits suicide

In another incident, the body of a tenth-standard student was fished out from the same lake on Friday morning.

The police said Sumalatha, 16, a resident of Pomulaparthi village in Ranga Reddy district, allegedly committed suicide by jumping into the lake as she was suffering from health problems for the last five years.