The Mumbai Police, after a maritime and aerial search operation lasting over 22 hours, have recovered the bodies of all the four minor boys who were sucked into the Arabian Sea off Juhu’s Koliwada on Monday evening, the BMC Disaster Control said here on Tuesday.
Earlier on Tuesday, the police recovered the bodies of Dharmesh Valji Faujiya and Shubham Yogesh Bhogania, both 16, and they were sent to the R.N. Cooper Hospital.
The missing bodies of two others, Manish Yogesh Bhogania, 12, and Jay Roshan Tajbariya, 15, were also recovered after over 22 hours from the Arabian Sea, stirred up by Cyclone Biparjoy.
Of the total five victims who were drowning last 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 8 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 8 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.
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