06 August,2020 04:49 AM IST | Mumbai | The Editorial
Children jump into the tank near Modern bakery at Aarey Colony. Pic/Satej Shinde
It is have-a-tank-will-swim at Aarey as people continue to jump into and swim in the 20-feet-deep, 100-feet-wide tank, primarily meant for washing cattle.
Aarey locals said to this paper's reporter that several children jump into this water tank and swim in it. It did have metal rods earlier, but these were filched. In fact, Aarey authorities claim that the grills from the fence they erect are regularly stolen.
It is shocking to see children swimming in this tank. Some of these kids as young as five, are sure to drown in the waters. Locals have also stated that adults sit on the edge of the tank and there are drinking parties. We know from so many incidents that alcohol and deep waters are a deadly mix.
While there may be constraints put up by the authorities as they have claimed that their attempts to stop swimmers have often come to naught, there cannot be an attitude of helplessness or an inability to stop these happenings.
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Signage near the tank for violating rules and no swimming guidelines will help, even if people claim nobody pays attention.
Roping in the community, who can alert the security in case they find persons swimming in the tank, or any other misdemeanours, can also be helpful though locals
should not try to stop those breaking rules, and should simply alert the authorities.
Though it is a stretch for resources, the one feasible way to solve the problem is to have added patrolling. Families in the area, need to constantly talk to their children about the dangers of unsupervised swimming in violation of rules.
This is a very serious occurrence and one should surely up the measures in order to tackle this effectively. We need a think tank for this tank.
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