Eight Alandi students drown at Diveagar beach in Raigad during school trip

Eight students from Alandi drowned at Diveagar beach in Raigad on Thursday evening. They had left home cheerfully for an outing. Eight of the students who entered the sea were pulled away by the current and lost their lives. The tragedy has plunged the students' families and the entire neighbourhood into mourning.

Among the dead was Sumit Bharat Ahire. His maternal uncle, Mukesh Mali, could not hold back his tears as he remembered him. He said Sumit had never insisted on anything. For the first time, he insisted on going on the Diveagar trip, and the family let him go.

Sumit wanted to become an engineer. He had enrolled at Winners Academy for this and had begun preparing for the JEE from Class 11. He was the only son of his parents and looked after them alongside his studies. His birthday had been celebrated only a few days earlier. But the Diveagar trip became his last.

A group of 48 students and teachers from Winners Academy had gone to visit Raigad Fort and Diveagar. The group had 25 boys, 17 girls and six teachers. After a day of sightseeing, they reached Diveagar beach. In the evening, some students entered the sea. Not knowing the depth of the water or the strength of the waves, some of the children were pulled in.

The dead are Rajveer Vahile, Soham Bhandvalkar, Kaustubh Daund, Yash Wankhede, Kaivalya Wasnikar, Tanmay Vahile, Sumit Ahire and Pranav Bansode.

Questions are now being raised over whether Winners Academy followed the necessary safety rules while preparing for the trip. An inquiry is also under way into whether the required permissions were obtained when the academy was started. Whether the students were allowed to go into the sea, whether they were given life jackets and how closely teachers were supervising them on the shore will be important to the inquiry. It may also be examined whether the academy had sought information in advance on tides, currents, safe areas, warnings from the local administration and rescue arrangements.

Questions are also being asked about whether preparations had been made for emergencies to protect the children, and whether the availability of a rescue team or local lifeguards had been checked. Responsibility for the tragedy can be fixed only after an official inquiry into all these matters. Meanwhile, grief has engulfed the families of the children. The children who went on the outing in high spirits did not return home, and a mood of sorrow hangs over Alandi.