CHENNAI: A seven-year-old boy got drowned in an open sump, set up at a vacant land in Kotturpuram, on Saturday evening. Police investigations revealed that the boy went to fetch a ball which fell into the sump.

The deceased was identified as Arun Raj, a class 2 student at a private school in Kotturpuram. On Saturday evening, Arun was playing cricket with friends when the ball fell on a gated vacant plot nearby. Arun scaled the gates and went to search for the ball and had noticed it in the open sump, police said.

When trying to retrieve it, he slipped off and fell inside. His friends who saw the events unfolding from outside alerted the elders. The boy was later fished out from the sump and moved to a government hospital where he was declared as brought dead.