New Delhi: An evening outing of three childhood friends ended in tragedy after the youths from Kalyanpuri, aged 22, drowned in Sanjay Jheel in east Delhi on Tuesday evening. Their families have alleged that the deaths were a result of negligence.The park area surrounding the lake, which has been developed by Delhi Development Authority (DDA), allegedly had no warning signage or barricading alerting visitors to the danger, and no guard was present to prevent people from entering the water.For Ashish Nautiyal’s family, the tragedy came just weeks before his 23rd birthday in Sept. Instead of preparing for the celebration, his family will now be taking his body to Haridwar for the last rites. “Had I known where he was going, I would have stopped him,” Ashish’s father Lakshmiprasad Nautiyal told TOI.Ashish worked with event management companies. He, Saurav and Sahil had been friends since school and lived in the same locality. On Tuesday evening, one of them entered the lake to take a dip and the other two followed, apparently in an attempt to save him.Saurav’s cousin Hemant Kumar said, “My brother has gone today. It could be someone else’s son tomorrow. This is purely due to the negligence of the administration and DDA.”Kumar added that it was only after the incident that he learnt the lake was considered “dangerous” and that several such incidents had been reported in the past.Saurav, a rider working with a ride-hailing platform, was the youngest of three siblings. His father passed away a few years ago. He is survived by his mother, who is a homemaker, an elder sister and an elder brother. Relatives remember him as a “happy and caring person” who was close to his family.For his loved ones, the pain has been made sharper by the memory of their last meeting. Hemant recalled seeing him on Raksha Bandhan, never imagining that it would be their final meeting.Sahil’s father Shahid said the family initially received a call informing them that his son had drowned. “They said he had gone into the water about an hour ago and had not come out. Later, we found out that he and his friends had died,” he told the media.By Tuesday night, the families were no longer waiting for their sons to return home. They were left preparing to say goodbye to three young men who had stepped out together, just as they had done countless times before. Police said an inquiry has been initiated at Pandav Nagar police station to probe the circumstances leading to the deaths.When contacted, DDA denied claims that it had undertaken illegal sand mining at the site. “The allegation that the deep-water body was created as a result of illegal sand mining by DDA is completely unfounded,” it stated, adding, “Appropriate safety measures are already in place at the site. Warning signages have been installed and a toe wall has been constructed around the water body.”
