Two teens drown in sea, two go missing

Thiruvananthapuram: The New Year started off with a tragedy in the city with two teenagers drowning and two of their friends going missing in sea at Edayar near Panathura under Poonthura police station limits.
Beema Palli residents Ibrahim Badusha and Ramees Khan, both Class XI students of the Beema Maheen Memorial Higher Secondary School at Beema Palli, are the deceased.

The two others who are missing have been identified as Nawab Khan and Bismillah Khan.

Another teen, Ali Mufthiyar, who was swept away by the waves, was saved by local fishermen and has since been admitted to a private hospital nearby. The spot, where the students met with the tragedy was a sandbar region, which was already in a perilous condition.

According to police, the incident occurred around 4pm on Tuesday. A seven-member group of students visited the sandbar at Edayar, where the Karamana river joined the Arabian sea. The two others in the group were Jaseeb Khan and Abdul Raheem. Except Mufthiyar, all others were students of Beema Meheen Memorial HSS.

The students reached here to pass time after classes dispersed by noon. While Jaseeb Khan and Abdul Raheem chose to bathe in the river on one side of the sandbar and as a result remained safe, the five others stepped into the sea on the other side and were swept away by the strong waves.

Poonthura sub-inspector Sajin Louis said the children might have been caught in the whirlpools that formed in the sea when the sandbar broke.

“When we reached the spot, we noticed that the sandbar was already broken. As time passed, the gap grew bigger. We think that the children were unaware of the dangerous condition of the sandbar,” the SI said.

The SI added that it was Ali Muftiyar, who was first rescued by the fishermen. Subsequently, the police, fire and rescue services personnel, coastal police and Indian Coast Guard were alerted and they immediately launched a search.

They managed to pull Ibrahim Khan out alive. But, he died moments after reaching a hospital nearby. Ramees Khan’s body was later recovered by the search team. The search for remaining two are still going on.

The police said that sandbar was located in a secluded region. There were no houses in at least 1.5km from the spot. People normally avoided the place as it was a dangerous spot. Since it was not a tourist spot, there were no warning boards or guards either.

Biju Victor, a fisherman from Poonthura who rescued two of the boys, said that none of the seven boys knew how to swim.

“The narrow groove where the sea and river meet is a dangerous place even for those who know swimming. We were at the shore preparing to go off into the sea in two boats when a friend informed us that a group of boys were drowning. We reached the spot in our boats quickly but were only able to find two boys. Later, Poonthura police and two of the boys who stayed back also joined us in the search,” he said.

According to local resident Donz David, people drowning here during holidays is a common incident. “Most of the people involved in the accidents are not from here. The groove is quite unpredictable and dangerous. If locals are nearby, we warn people about the dangers,” he said.