Drowning of law student still a mystery

HYDERABAD: It was just a regular day out for a group of students from the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research (NALSAR) on June 28. A group of eight students hit the Celebrity Club to chill and have a swim but the day did not go as planned. In an unfortunate incident, Mahesh Gopan (19), a second-year student of BA.LLB, entered the pool, only to be found drowned a few minutes later. He was taken out of the pool and declared dead after being rushed to the hospital.“I know those kids personally. They would regularly come to our club to just hang out or take a swim,” said Sanjeev Bora, assistant food and beverage manager at Celebrity Club, who was quite hesitant to talk. He further added, “They were having beer when I saw them and after that they went for a swim. I did not see what happened but after a while I heard some noise and rushed outside to see. Mahesh’s friends were freaked out and asked for a vehicle so they could rush him to the hospital.” The interesting thing is that Mahesh, who hailed from Kerala knew how to swim. So the question of how he managed to drown comes up. When Harsh Khemka, a classmate of Mahesh’s was asked, he quickly responded, “I was not present there when the incident took place. I don’t know what exactly happened but Mahesh knew how to swim.” When this correspondent inquired about students who had accompanied Mahesh, Harsh said they were not in the right state of mind to make any comment.  Rumours are that Mahesh was pulled out of the pool by his friends and life-guards deployed by the club at the pool but Harsh begs to differ. He said, “There were not many people in the pool when he drowned. Also there were no life guards deployed at that time.” Narender Reddy, inspector, Shamirpet had a different tale to tell. “Some of them were at the club for sometime and the other boys joined them directly. Mahesh was one of them. We don’t know if he knew how to swim but he went in to the pool anyway. He slowly moved towards the deep side and went in. Nobody realised he was missing for a while. Later, when they figured out that he was missing, everyone went looking for him only to find him drowned into the pool,” the inspector said. He further added, “He was declared dead after being taken to the hospital. In the post-mortem report, no traces of alcohol were found.”