Team Mangalorean - Suburban

Mangalore: Mohammed Afeez (13), aka Appi, son of Mohammed Ali of Majalutota in Ambalamogaru and a student of Std VIII in St Sebastian High School in Permannur, drowned in an uncultivated paddy field which was filled with water after heavy rains on Monday, July 2 evening.

He was also attending madrassa classes in grade 7 and had completed the examinations on Sunday and hence there was a religion class on Monday. In view of it, four children from the same family had gone with friends to play in a field about one and a half kilometre away through the Lakshmi Narasimha temple road.

The water from the field flows into river Netravati. Afeez is suspected to have fallen into water around dusk. While all the boys returned home by 7-30 pm, Afeez's parents were worried since he did not come home even by 9 pm. They came to know from his friends that he had fallen into the field.

The locals, along with experts divers from Shivaji lifeguards and Ullal lifeguards teams, started searching for the boy in the field. As the large field had turned into a lake, a mechanized boat was used for the search operation.

In spite of over 24 hours of search, the body was not found until late Tuesday night.