Six drown in western Maharashtra

MUMBAI - Six youth, including three employees of a private power company, drowned in western Maharashtra Sunday, police said.

The body of a 19-year old youth was found in a pond in the morning at the Malwani northwest suburb of Mumbai, an officer of the Malwani police station said.

The victim, Feroze Sheikh, and his two friends had gone for a bath in the pond Saturday evening.

When Feroze drowned, his friends panicked and went away without informing the police or fire brigade. The matter came to light Sunday when his family members complained to the police and a search led the police to his body.

In another incident in Thane’s Ambernath town, two young boys - Ganesh Bantwal, 12, and Shivappa Bantwal, 13 - drowned while playing in a 10-foot ditch filled with rainwater.

They were cousins and children of construction workers employed at a building site nearby, police said.

In the third incident, three people were washed away in strong currents at the picturesque Kashid Beach in Raigad district, around 125 km south of Mumbai.

The trio was part of an eight-member group, including two women, from Bhiwandi in Thane district which had gone to the beach for a weekend picnic, according to Murud Police Station chief Sanjay Patil.

“This (Sunday) afternoon, around 1 p.m., they went for a swim in the sea waters and failed to come out. Later, police and rescue teams managed to retrieve the body of one - Lallukumar Gautam,” Patil told IANS.

Rescue teams are still hunting for the bodies of the other two victims — Santosh Jadhav, 28 and Yogesh Wagh, 24.

The victims worked for a franchisee of the Maharashtra State Electricity Board, and lived in Bhiwandi.

A member of the group, Amrut Patel, said that while Jadhav was a bachelor, Wagh had been married only three months ago, and Gautam’s family lives in Bihar.