Fisherman’s body found off city’s coast after four days

Four days after a fisherman fell into the sea while ferrying a news channel team to the site of the MSC Chitra-Khalija III collision, his body was found floating off the Mumbai coast on Sunday at 1 pm.

Four days after a fisherman fell into the sea while ferrying a news channel team to the site of the MSC Chitra-Khalija III collision, his body was found floating off the Mumbai coast on Sunday at 1 pm.

HT Image

“A highly decomposed body was found floating at seven nautical miles from the Mumbai coast this morning by the Coast Guard. The body was brought to the shore and was taken to JJ hospital for a post-mortem to ascertain the cause of death,” Deputy Police Commissioner Khalid Kaiser said.

“The man was later identified as Dhanraj Rathod (20). Dhanraj’s brother identified his body,” he said.

Two reporters and a cameraman of a news channel had hired a boat from Sassoon dock on Wednesday and along with three fishermen had gone into the sea to cover a story related to the collision, said the police.

A curious Rathod, who was in another boat, joined them to get a look at the media’s coverage.

As the boat reached MSC Chitra, the journalists got busy gathering details, when Rathod suddenly lost balance and slipped off the boat, police said, adding the youth was washed away due to choppy waters.

Police officials earlier said that Rathod knew swimming, and suspected he may have fallen off due to the turbulent sea and swept by the strong tides.

The media persons did not have the necessary permission to venture into the sea on the trawler.