The 10-year-old son of a Group C employee of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta drowned in a water body on the Joka campus on Sunday afternoon.

Police said the boy, whose father works as an attendant on the campus, was reported missing around 11am on Sunday.

Family members, who stay in staff quarters on the campus, did not notice him going out of the house.

“They started looking for the child around 11am. They searched the area around their quarters but he was not found anywhere. Then they started looking for him near the water bodies on the campus,” said an officer at Haridevpur police station.

“The child went out of the house unnoticed. His father is a Group C employee at the institute. A search was launched. A few hours later, the child’s body was recovered from one of the water bodies on the campus around 1pm,” said an IIM Calcutta official.

The sprawling campus has several water bodies.

The boy was taken to a private hospital close to the campus, where he was declared dead.

Incidents of minors drowning in ponds are not new in Calcutta. Several such
cases have been reported in the past.

“In all these cases one thing is common. The children were left unattended and they slipped out of the house unnoticed,” said an officer at the Kolkata Police headquarters in Lalbazar.

Officers at Haridevpur police station said an unnatural death case has been registered.