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Two Pune trekkers on their way to Maharashtra’s Devkund waterfall go missing
Mumbai city news: Police believe they may have drowned
Two trekkers from Pune went missing at two separate locations while they were on their way to Devkund waterfall on Sunday.
The waterfall is a famous trekking spot located near Tamini Ghat in Raigad district, 66km from Pune. The two incidents took place almost 30km away from Mangaon village.
According to the local police, Vineet Pathak, 25, a college student from Dapoli, went missing from his group of 10 people on Sunday afternoon. In the second incident, Lieutenant Akhilesh Chaudhary, an Army officer, went missing near Dabdaba waterfall from his group of 15 Army trekkers — an hour after the first incident was reported. Both incidents occurred at a distance of one kilometre from each other.
“We were made aware of the incidents around 2pm and began rescue operations. It continued till 7pm and we had to call it off because it was dark. There could not trace them. We believe that they might have drowned,” said Rajendra Pardeshi, police inspector, Mangaon police station.
He added that all other trekkers were safe and during the rescue operation the police could only recover the mobile phone of the Army officer. “We will resume the rescue from 7am on Monday,” said Pardeshi.
Local guide Nikhil Mamnhar said the place was overcrowded. “At least 1,000-1,200 tourist were there. We were told about two missing people. Our team went into the water to search but we found nothing,” he said, adding that other tourists were told to return to avoid any untoward incidents.
In June, 55 students were stranded between two streams of Kundalika river. They were rescued after after a six-hour operation. The following week from this incident, two people lost their lives after they drowned at Devkund.
“It has been raining heavily for the past three days and tourists have been informed to avoid this spot for trekking since it’s very slippery and the flow of water is fast. However, people continue to come in large numbers,” said Sanjay Patil, deputy superintendent of police, Raigad. “While it seems like a probable case of drowning, the search operation will not be called off till the bodies are located.”
