India, March 21 -- An eight-year-old boy's attempt to retrieve a ball ended in fatality after he fell into an unguarded 20-foot-deep water-filled pit at an SRA construction site in Malad's Kurar Village, triggering outrage among residents and allegations of negligence against the developer.

Divyansh Maurya, a Class II student, had been missing since around 8 pm on Thursday. His family, neighbours and the Kurar police searched frantically through the night before his father, Rajesh Maurya, found his body in the pit around 3 am on Friday.

He was rushed to Shatabdi Hospital in Kandivali, where doctors declared him dead. The body was later sent to Siddharth Hospital in Goregaon for post-mortem.

Divyansh, the elder of two siblings, lived in...