The Navy divers on Wednesday morning recovered the bodies of the three youngsters who drowned in the Arabian Sea at Mumbai’s Juhu beach on Tuesday afternoon, police said.
The Santacruz police registered an Accidental Death Report (ADR) and the bodies were sent to the Cooper Hospital, from where they were handed over to the respective families after conducting post mortem.
According to the police, the search operation for the three youngsters– two brothers and their friend– that started at 3pm on Tuesday had to be discontinued at 7.30pm due to darkness, however it resumed on Wednesday early morning.
“We have registered a case of accidental Death (ADR) and handed over the bodies to the parents of the deceased after conducting the post mortem,” said Babasaheb Tambe, senior police inspector of Santacruz police station adding that the bodies were then taken to Cooper Hospital, Tambe.
The deceased have been identified as Aman Singh (21), Kaustubh Ganesh Gupta (18) and Pratham Ganesh Gupta (16). They had gone to the beach along with another friend, Abhishek Jogendra Sharma (17). He, however, managed to swim ashore when the tide started to rise and was saved.
After being unable to spot his friends, Sharma alerted the lifeguards who in turn alerted the Disaster Management Cell (DMC) of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). The Navy, which was called in by DMC, deployed a Chetak helicopter along with their divers for the search operation.
The incident occurred behind Juhu Hotel at around 2:30pm on Tuesday. In his statement to the police, Abhishek Sharma told the Santacruz police that the four were friends and stayed close to each other at Vashi Naka in Chembur. They were students who had come to the beach as they did not have any lectures on Tuesday afternoon. They then decided to go into the sea for a swim since the tide was low. While Sharma stayed close to the shore, the victims went in too deep. “When I could not spot the three, I swam and reached the shore. I then raised an alarm and shouted for help alerting the lifeguard at the beach,” Sharma told the Santacruz police.
The maternal aunt of the two brothers, who drowned, said, “The elder one had appeared for the HSC exams and had secured 80 per cent, while the younger one had appeared for the SSC exams and was awaiting results. The boys had said that they were going to play and left home at around 1pm.”