Mumbai boy drowns while taking selfie with friend at Marine Drive

Boy drowns while taking selfie at Marine Drive. (File)

A boy drowned off Marine Drive on Saturday afternoon. Local residents said he was taking selfie, along with a friend, close to the water when the incident took place.

The Mumbai Fire Bridge received a message at 3.53 pm about a boy falling in the sea near Air India Building on Marine Drive. The boy’s body was fished out of the water after a 20-minute operation. It was taken to G T Hospital and is yet to be identified. Doctors have said the boy was around 10 years old, the police said.

According to local people, the boy had climbed down to the tetrapods adjoining the wall of the promenade, along with a friend, when he slipped and fell in the water. An onlooker tried to save the boy but was injured after his leg hit the cement blocks. The police said the boy’s friend ran away in the chaos. The man who tried rescuing the boy was pulled out of the water by the fire brigade personnel.

“We have sent messages across Mumbai on the wireless network and are hopeful that the boy’s family will come and claim the body,” said Vilas Gangawane, senior inspector, Marine Drive police station. The police said nearly one lakh people visited the seafront, stretching from Nariman Point to Charni Road, on Saturday — a public holiday for Eid.

Gangawane said the boy drowned just a few hours after a tide of 4.96 metres was recorded around 2 pm. The incident comes a year after a 17-year-old college student, Priti Pise, died after falling in the sea opposite Taraporewala Aquarium on June 28. Chunabhatti resident Pise and her friends had been sitting on the tetrapods and taking selfies when she got pulled into the water.