Mumbai, June 13 (IANS) The Mumbai Police have recovered the bodies of two minor boys and a search was resumed for two others still missing in the tragedy, the BMC Disaster Control said here on Tuesday.
The boys were sucked into the Arabian Sea off Juhu Koliwada on Monday evening.
The police recovered the bodies of Dharmesh Valji Faujiya and Shubham Yogesh Bhogania, both 16, and were sent to the R.N. Cooper Hospital.
Two others, Manish Yogesh Bhogania, 12, and Jay Roshan Tajbariya, 15, are still missing in the rough Arabian Sea waters, stirred by the cyclonic conditions of ‘Biparjoy’.
Of the total five victims who drowned Monday evening, one boy was rescued by the locals and fisherfolk, while the Mumbai Police, BMC fire brigade with speedboats, along with an Indian Navy chopper searched the sea till almost midnight for them.
The five were part of eight school friends who had gone on an impromptu half-day picnic to Juhu late on Monday afternoon, on the eve of the school reopening for the new academic year from Tuesday.
From the eight, five reportedly ignored warnings and went to a small fishing jetty from where they were swept off by the powerful waves in the water, and the power current quickly sucked them over half-km into the sea.
The eight minors, all non-swimmers, lived in a slum area of Vakola and had quietly slipped off for the evening sojourn that resulted in a watery grave for half the group, and the first major monsoon tragedy in Mumbai.
–IANS
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