8 students drown off Diveagar beach during picnic in Raigad
Police said the eight boys, all 16 years old, ventured into sea and were swept away after misjudging the depth of water and current
Mumbai, Oct 1 (PTI) Eight male students of a private coaching institute drowned in the Arabian Sea while on a picnic at the popular Diveagar beach in Maharashtra's Raigad district on Thursday, with the bodies of all the victims recovered, police said.
These students of Class XI and XII were part of a group from coaching institute 'Winners Academy' based at Alandi in Pune district, they said.
Located around 170 km from Mumbai, Diveagar is famous for its beach and historic temples.
A police official said a group of 48 -- 25 boys, 17 girls and six teachers -- had gone for a picnic at the beach under Dighi coastal police station limits.
Eight boys, all of them 16 years old, ventured into the sea and were swept away after misjudging the depth of the water and current, he added.
Search and rescue teams rushed to the spot following an alert and recovered the bodies, he said.
Police identified the deceased as Yash Kiran Wankhede, Soham Tukaram Bhandwalkar, Tanmay Dattatray Vahile, Kaustubh Sandeep Daund, Kaivalya Satish Wasankar, Rajveer Yuvraj Vahile, Pranav Ramdas Bansod and Sumit Bharat Ahire.
Terming the incident as "heart-breaking", Shiv Sena MLA Mahendra Dalvi, who represents the Alibag assembly constituency in Raigad district, blamed the local administration for the "lack of adequate safety precautions".
"Such incidents keep happening there time and again, so the local administration must take safety precautions. Young schoolchildren may not be able to assess the risks posed by the sea, including high tide and the depth of water," he said.
"Schoolchildren have no idea about the sea. It's not a pond, it's the sea....They cannot gauge the high tide or the depth of the water. Moreover, these children might not even know how to swim," Dalvi said, urging the local MLA and MP to look into the issue.
Prashant Kurhade, chairman of the Alandi Municipal Council, told PTI that some of the students were from Alandi town itself, while others were from neighbouring Kelgaon.
"We have been contacting the families," he said, adding that some of the parents had already left for Diveagar.
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in a post on X termed the deaths as extremely tragic and painful.
Condoling with the families who lost their children, he said the local administration was coordinating the transportation of the bodies.
Deputy Chief Ministers Sunetra Pawar and Eknath Shinde too condoled the deaths in social media posts.
Speaking to PTI, Pintu Vahile, deceased Tanmay Vahile's uncle, said Tanmay was from Lanadi and studying in Class XI. Rajveer Vahile and Soham Bhandwalkar hailed from Kelgaon, he said.
Tanmay had topped his school in Class X, and his father works at a private engineering college and is also a dairy farmer, Pintu Vahile said.
"It is a shocking incident for all of us. The parents and all other relatives have reached Diveagar," he said.
Rajveer's father is a farmer and the police patil (local police representative) of his village, while Soham too comes from a farming family, Vahile said. PTI