Kasaragod: Two schoolboys drowned in a mosque pond near Kanhangad on Thursday, and a third is battling for life in a Mangaluru hospital after being rescued in the nick of time.

The deceased have been identified as Afas (9), son of Azeez and Ayisha of Palakki, and Anwar (10), son of Haider and Abida of Madiyan in Ajanur grama panchayat, on the outskirts of Kanhangad town. Anwar's elder brother, Asif (11), is undergoing treatment at Unity Hospital in Mangaluru. "Doctors said they will assess his condition after 24 hours. Slush has entered his lungs," said Kunhamina C, panchayat member of the Madiyan ward.

According to residents, five boys had gone to the Pazhyapally (Old Mosque) pond in Madiyan to play. The group included Haider and Abida’s three sons -- Asif, Anwar, and Ajwad (8) -- along with Afas and another boy of the same age.

"One of the boy's slippers had slipped into the pond. Whoever tried to retrieve first must have slipped and the others tried to help him and all got stuck in the slush," said Kunhamina. After two days of heavy rain, the pond was full.

It was the fifth boy who ran out and raised the alarm. Among the first to reach the pond was Azeez, Afas's father. A well-known social worker, Azeez is often the first to respond when others are in trouble. This time, he didn't realise the emergency was his own.

He jumped into the water and pulled out Anwar and Asif. He rushed them to Manzoor Hospital, 3 km away. But Anwar did not survive the journey. Asif, in a critical state, was referred to a tertiary care hospital in Mangaluru.
Only after some time did people realise that one more boy was missing. A frantic search began. Eventually, they found Afas -- lifeless in the pond his father had just braved.

Azeez, who runs a supermarket in the UAE, had returned home briefly. His elder son works abroad, and his daughter, older than Afas, is still in school. Anwar and Asif's parents, Haider and Abida, are both in Malaysia. The children were under the care of their grandmother. "Haider has been working there for eight years," said Kunhamina. "Abida, who was a nurse in a hospital here in Kanhangad, joined him just last year after getting a job there."

Abida is seven months pregnant. "We don’t know how she will take this news of her two boys," Kunhamina said.

The children were students of Himayathul Islam Aided Upper Primary School at Chittari near Madiyan.

Summer holidays often turn tragic in Kerala, where unsupervised swims in local ponds and rivers end in heartbreak far too often. This time, the vacation was ending in 10 days.