A Sun­day evening lime end­ed in tragedy for res­i­dents of Kat­wa­roo Trace when 52-year-old Sunil Sankar drowned in a Petrotrin pond in Pe­nal.

Res­i­dents said it took five hours be­fore first re­spon­ders lo­cat­ed Sankar’s body, which they be­lieved had be­come en­tan­gled in un­der­wa­ter grass and vines.

At 10 pm, a Hunters’ Search and Res­cue team re­trieved his body, us­ing a rope with fish­ing hooks and weights to comb the area where res­i­dents last saw him go un­der.

De­spite the calm morn­ing that fol­lowed yes­ter­day, signs of the pre­vi­ous night’s tragedy lin­gered—a pair of shoes lay be­neath yel­low crime scene tape, and a rolled-up shirt sat on a ta­ble.

Friends Damion Sama­roo and Avinash Lall stood near the pond, star­ing in­to the wa­ter in dis­be­lief. Sama­roo ex­plained that Sankar had not been part of the orig­i­nal group but joined them around 4.30 pm.

Af­ter tak­ing a shot of rum and eat­ing a piece of igua­na, he told them he was go­ing to take a dip.

In less than a minute, he dis­ap­peared from their sight.

“He just took off his shirt and walked in there, and that was it. The last thing we saw was his fin­gers, and he just went straight down,” Sama­roo said.

Five res­i­dents jumped in to search for Sankar when they re­alised what had hap­pened. But as night fell, the search be­came in­creas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult, forc­ing them to call for help.

Avinash Lall, an­oth­er friend, said un­der­wa­ter vines and slush may have trapped Sankar.

Al­though they ini­tial­ly searched fur­ther out in the wa­ter, they lat­er found his body clos­er to the bank, hid­den un­der bush­es.

Lall said he found the sit­u­a­tion strange, as it was the first time he had ever seen Sankar en­ter the wa­ter. He added that no one typ­i­cal­ly swims in the pond.

The loss weighed heav­i­ly on Lall, who shared that Sankar had once lived at his home.

Even though Sankar had moved out, he vis­it­ed him every morn­ing to col­lect a piece of roti.

He said Sankar’s ab­sence yes­ter­day morn­ing felt un­set­tling.

“This is re­al­ly dis­turb­ing. I did not even sleep last night. The whole night I was just watch­ing the road, think­ing, boy, I will see him com­ing,” Lall said.

“The man used to live by me at a time. It comes like the man still used to stay by me be­cause every day in the morn­ing ‘Sic’ used to come by me to get a lit­tle piece of roti. Yes­ter­day morn­ing, it was so strange that the man nev­er came.”

Of­fi­cers from the Pe­nal Po­lice Sta­tion said they re­ceived a re­port of a sus­pect­ed drown­ing and are await­ing an au­top­sy to ad­vance their in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

—KEVON FELMINE