The algae makes it hard to know where the grass ends and the water begins

‘Why wasn’t pond in Eco Park kids’ area fenced off?’

(With inputs from Mayukh Sengupta)

KOLKATA: A mother’s desperate search for her four-year-old son who went missing while playing at New Town’s showcase Eco Park ended in tragedy when the child’s body was brought out by divers from a pond covered in a film of algae hours later. Police suspect the boy may have either walked into the watery grave mistaking the green cover over it as an extension of the sloping turf or rolled down the slope and into the water.According to police, Sultana Parveen — a resident of Taltala Lane — reached the Eco Park around 1pm with her son and a neighbourhood couple. An hour later, they entered the children’s park where Abez started playing with the other children while the others decided to have lunch.It isn’t clear when Abez went missing but his mother noticed his absence around 3pm. For the next 20-30 minutes, the trio searched the entire ground. Failing to trace him, they informed a guard, who called his colleagues and formed a search party. When they, too, could not find him, the park authorities were alerted. It was finally around 5.30pm that Eco Park officials called New Town police station to inform that a child had gone missing from the grounds.Police arrived at the park soon afterwards and began the search. A few cops also scanned the CCTV footage to check if someone had walked off with the boy. Policemen were also posted at various exits to keep an eye on the visitors exiting the park. But these efforts, too, drew a blank. It was around 6.30pm when the park was beginning to empty out that the cops began to suspect that the boy may have accidentally fallen in the pond covered in a film of algae. Divers from the Disaster Management Group of Bidhannagar Commissionerate were deployed around 7.15pm.Around 15 minutes later, and four-and a-half-hours after young Abez had gone missing, his limp body was recovered from the pond. He was taken to Charnock Hospital though any chance of reviving him was futile.The accident raised several disturbing questions about the park that is one of the most popular amusement spots all year round and particularly in winter. While the mother was numb with shock, a distraught Sk Akbar, the boy’s father, questioned why the edge of the pond in a children’s play area had not been fenced to prevent accidents like the one in which he had lost his son.Others wondered why the water had not been cleaned so that one could easily make out where the grass ended and water edge began.Last April, 13 children were injured, one critically, after they came crashing to the ground from a height of about 10feet during a joy ride at the amusement park. The children jumping on a balloon had a nasty fall when the nylon ropes tied to it had snapped during a nor’wester. Four children had to be admitted to a hospital and a park staff suffered a fracture in that accident.Though park officials were tight-lipped, one of them felt the parents should have kept an eye on the child as well. “Had his guardians been vigilant, the tragedy could have been averted,” he remarked.