17-year-old Thane student’s body found in Matheran creek a day after he goes missing

Mast Daga, a student of Xavier’s college in Mumbai, did not go to his tuition class on Monday, and was spotted alone at the hill station

Seventeen-year-old St Xavier’s College student Mast Daga, was found dead in a valley below Garbett Point at Matheran on Tuesday night — a day after he went missing.

Mast Daga had not attended college for the past one week and was depressed, the police said.

The post-mortem report revealed that he suffered a heart attack. The report indicated multiple fractures, leading police to suspect he collapsed and fell in the valley. The body has been handed over to his family.

“He was seen travelling alone in the train, and a Matheran resident spotted him sitting alone, close to where his body was found,” said a police official, who did not wish to be identified.

The Matheran police have registered a case of accidental death. They will transfer the case to the Wagle Estate police station in Thane, where the missing person’s complaint was filed.

Daga was a second-year junior college science student. He left home on Monday morning and withdrew Rs500 from nearby ATM at Wagle Estate in Thane. After he failed to show up to his tuition class in Mulund, his parents began looking for him.

They later approached the police, saying his phone had been switched off.

“We circulated a message detailing how to identify Daga. On Tuesday, we got a call from the Matheran police. Our officer accompanied Daga’s parents there. They identified their son’s body,” said Ravindra Malekar, senior inspector from Wagle Estate police station.

Police said Daga had been depressed for the past few days. “His parents, however, said he had neither fought with them nor had seemed tense,” Malekar said.

Daga’s friends told police that he stopped attending college a week ago,” he said.