Two arrested after child drowns in Mumbai pool

Mumbai : After the supervisor and trainer of the facility were arrested on charges of causing death by negligence, police say they are scrupulously probing all allegations made by parents of the 7-year-old deceased

Two men were arrested yesterday in the aftermath of the death of a young boy who drowned at the Ozone swimming pool and activity centre, Goregaon (West) on Sunday evening. Goregaon police have booked supervisor Salman Shaikh (44), and trainer Ignatius D'costa (22), for causing death due to negligence. They have been remanded to judicial custody. Arun Jadhav, senior police inspector, Goregaon police station, said, "Investigations are on in full swing, and more arrests are likely in the future."

Seven-year-old Aryan Parab, a resident of Motilal Nagar, drowned in the pool while attending a swimming class. His grief-stricken parents, shocked even more with the events that followed the incident, feel their only son's life could have been saved. Sneha Parab, Aryan's mother, said, "Apart from negligence on part of the pool authorities, there was no first aid or a doctor on call after he was pulled out of the water."

"Besides that, there was no ambulance or a vehicle to take my son to a hospital. We were frantically searching for a rickshaw, but we didn't find one for a few minutes. All these delays proved fatal," said a teary-eyed Sneha. Aryan was first taken to a private hospital. "However, the staff there turned us away stating they didn't have the necessary facilities," said Sneha. "We rushed him to another hospital where the doctors tried to resuscitate him but to no avail, and they finally pronounced him dead. The doctors informed me that had we brought our son a little earlier, it would have been possible for them to revive him," she added.

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"We will probe all allegations of negligence," said Arvind Pawar, assistant police inspector, Goregaon police station. Aryan is the biological child of Sneha Parab's brother. The Parabs adopted the child when he was a year old. "Aryan's biological mother is traumatised knowing what happened to her child," said Sneha.  

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