Four missing school children found dead in lake near Chennai

October 4, 2026

Chennai: Four schoolchildren, who went missing from their homes here on Saturday, were found dead in Thiruneermalai lake on Sunday, police said.

The victims, two boys and two girls, were friends who lived on Krishna Street in Lakshmipuram, Chromepet.

Police identified them as K. Devadarshan, 12, D. Yuvanesh, 10, and Pooja and Khushi, both 13.

Devadarshan was a Class 7 student at a government school, while Pooja and Khushi studied in Class 8 at a government school. Yuvanesh attended Class 6 at a private school.

According to police, the children were last seen playing together near their houses on Saturday afternoon. They subsequently left the neighbourhood and failed to return home, prompting their families to begin looking for them.

The parents contacted relatives and friends and searched for the children before circulating their photographs in local WhatsApp groups. Residents were asked to pass on any information about their whereabouts.

With the searches yielding no leads and the children remaining untraceable late into the night, the parents of the two boys lodged a missing persons complaint at Chromepet police station.

Police then alerted personnel at Tambaram, Egmore, and Chennai Central railway stations, as well as the Kelambakkam bus terminus, asking them to check whether the children had travelled outside the area.

The search ended in tragedy on Sunday when members of the public visiting Thiruneermalai Periya Eri, near Lakshmipuram, spotted four bodies floating in the water and informed the authorities.

Police and personnel from the Tamil Nadu Fire and Rescue Services reached the lake and retrieved the bodies.

They were brought ashore, where family members identified the children. The bodies were subsequently sent to the mortuary at Tambaram District Government Hospital for post-mortem examinations.

Investigators are trying to establish how the children reached the lake and the circumstances in which they entered the water. Police suspect that they became trapped in slush and drowned. However, the sequence of events leading to their deaths has yet to be established.

Police enquiries into the circumstances surrounding the deaths are continuing.