Bangalore, Feb 7: 14 friends – engineering students in Bangalore, were on an adventurous trip on Saturday, Feb 4 but it ended with a deadly experience when one of them lost his life on the journey.
21-one-year-old sixth semester engineering student from BMS College of Engineering – CS Naveen Kumar drowned in a lake which was reportedly 25-feet deep.
The 14 students, including 10 boys and 4 girls, had set out for trekking at Mondat, Kottuchatta Falls, in Kabbinale forests of Sakleshpur. However, police accused the students of not taking permission from concerned authorities before entering the reserved forest.
After the deadly incident, one of the students, succeeded to inform a forest department checkpost near Gundiya at almost eight hours after the accident. Police informed local people who started search for Naveen’s body and finally recovered it on Monday, Feb 6.
Besides Naveen, other students’ names were – Swarup, Avinash, Avinash, Likhit,Akash, Abhay, Amit, Prarthana, Sharanya, Hema, Prarthana and Nagendra. One more boy’s name is still yet to be revealed. All of them were booked and later were released on bail.
Police handed over Naveen’s body to his family and also registered a case of unnatural death. Meanwhile, jurisdictional forest official Rathnaprabha said, “Entering the forest without permission from the jurisdictional office can be punishable under Section 24 of the Karnataka Forest Act for trespassing, which is a serious offence.”
I am of the view- that either they did not knew rules…there was no check post OR they overlooked …
I don’t blame Karnataka police but it would be more better , if they could advertise as much as possible about entering in jungle- lake areas….without permission.
On the other hand- they should also make sure that public gets permission easily- if they can do this online- what a better use of technology it would be !