Three teens drown off Mumbai’s Juhu beach; search ops continue for fourth boy

All four are 17-year-old boys from DN Nagar in Andheri; a 22-year-old was rescued on Thursday.

The bodies of three of the four youngsters, who went for a swim in the sea on Thursday evening, off Juhu beach, have been recovered.

Search operations underway off Juhu beach on Friday morning. (Satyabrata Tripathy/HT Photo)

Seven friends, all residents of DN Nagar in Andheri, had gone to Juhu beach, of whom five decided to go for a swim, the police said. “Four of them got pulled in by the high tide around 5.30pm,” said an official from Juhu police station.

The four – all 17-year-olds – have been identified as Fardeen Saudagar, Sohail Khan, Faisal Shaikh and Nazir Gazi.

The fifth youngster, Wasim Khan, 22, was rescued by lifeguards. Gazi’s body was recovered later in the day, and was taken to Cooper hospital.

Search and rescue operations continued till night and restarted on Friday morning, when two more bodies were recovered. One Navy and One Coast Guard Chetak restarted the search at 8am. A naval diving team has also been looking for bodies since 5.30am. “The sea condition is very challenging for diving ops due to strong currents and waves. The divers are using grapnels to avoid being swept away by strong currents,” a defence press release said.

Officials are now looking for the last missing boy.

The police said local fishermen had warned the boys against entering the sea. “I told my son to stay near our house as the weather was getting bad and it had been raining. I had no idea he would go to the beach,” said Feroze Saudagar, Fardeen’s father.