Murud tragedy: Coast Guard, Navy search for body of missing student

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The Navy and Coast Guard today resumed operations to locate the body of a college student, who drowned along with 13 of his colleagues off the popular Murud-Janjira beach at the Arabian Sea coast in adjoining Raigad district.

A defence spokesperson said this morning that aerial search for the missing boy off Murud has resumed with Navy and Coast Guard helicopters and vessels.

One Naval vessel XFAC T81 and ICG ship Achook 194 (air cushion vessel) and 117 are continuing the search, the spokesperson said.

Bodies of 13 students, of the 20 who went for the swim, were located yesterday itself, while Coast Guard choppers had searched in vain for the 14th student who went for the swim and did not return.

"Thirteen bodies (10 girls and 3 boys) were recovered. Six students were rescued or managed to reach the shore and were taken to hospital and one student is still missing," an official said.

The students, aged between 18 and 20 doing BSC and BCA computer courses in Pune's Inamdar College, had gone to Murud in three buses for a picnic. They were swept into the sea when they went for a swim into the waters yesterday afternoon.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis yesterday said he was extremely saddened and shocked to know about the Murud incident.

The state government has announced Rs two lakh to the kin of each deceased student.

P A Inamdar, Trustee of the Pune-based college, run by Maharashtra Cosmopolitan Education Society, had earlier alleged that the beach where the students went apparently had no life guard.

A pall of gloom had descended over the college following the tragedy.

The picnickers were accompanied by around ten staff members, including teachers, the college authorities said.