India News | Four Children of Two Hindu Families Migrated from Pak Drowned in Stone Mine Waters

Jodhpur, May 10 (PTI) Four children of two refugee families from Pakistan drowned in a 50-feet deep water filled stone mine in Kaliberi area of Jodhpur on Monday, police said.

Their bodies, however, were recovered on Tuesday afternoon. The victims include two brothers from each family, who had been out playing around on Monday afternoon, police said.

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"When they did not return by the Monday evening, the family members began to search for them. There were some wedding functions in the locality. So when they did not find their children, they assumed that they might have gone to some wedding and would return by night”, said District Magistrate Himanshu Gupta, who rushed to the hospital to console their parents.

When the family members failed to find their children, they lodged a missing complaint with the police. But before the police could actually act, information was received that a child's body had been floating in the water in an abandoned stone quarry.

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SHO (Soorsagar) Gautam Dotasara informed that when the body was taken out, it was identified as Poonam Chand (8), son of Ramesh Bheel.

Soon, a team of divers was roped in, assuming that the three other missing children could also have been drowned in the quarry waters, police said.

And the apprehensions turned to be true when one after another, three bodies were recovered from the water.

“They were identified as Yuvraj (5), Teekam (12) and Gopal (8)”, said Dotasara, adding that the quarry was about 50 feet deep and these bodies had been stuck in the silt deep in the water. It took the divers about 4 hours to find them.

Of these, Poonam Chand and Yuvraj,were the sons of Ramesh Bheel while the other two were sons of Govind Bheel.

According to the information, both the families had come from Pakistan to settle in India. While Ramesh's family had come in 1998 and had obtained Indian citizenship, the family of Govind Bheel had come in 2015 and was yet to get the citizenship.

Both the families had been staying at Kaliberi Pak Visthapit Basti, a habitation of about 300 families of Pakistan returned Hindu migrants, some of whom have got the citizenship and some have not.

Chief minister Ashok Gehlot also expressed condolences on the death of four children by drowning in a stone quarry.

“The news of the death of 4 children of Pak migrants while bathing is unfortunate and painful. My emotions are there with the family and their relatives. May lord give them strength”, Gehlot tweeted.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)