Diver recovers drowned engineering student's body

PUNE: The body of a 22-year-old engineering student was recovered from a water body at Askarwadi village in Saswad around 10.15pm on Wednesday, a day after he drowned in it on Tuesday evening.
The victim, Mahesh Shendge, was a second-year student of Trinity College of Engineering and Research on Kondhwa-Saswad Road. A diver found his body late in the night on Wednesday after the Pune Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (PMRDA)'s fire brigade abandoned the rescue operation.
Inspector Dagdu Hake from the Saswad police said on Wednesday, "The diver continued to search the student's body till late in the night and recovered it."
Shendge belonged to a farmer's family from Maltan village in Daund taluka of Pun. The electrical engineering student had been residing in the boys' hostel of the college for the past eight days, said a source.
Police said 11 students, including three girls, visited the lake at Askarwadi, about 8km from the city, after the college hours at 4.30pm on Tuesday. They entered the water body - Amrai Talav - for a swim.
"Shendge moved a little away from the others and went deep into the water. His friends swam to safety and raised an alarm on realising that he was drowning, but could not save him," inspector Hake said.
Around 150 relatives and friends of the victim had reached the spot and appealed to the authorities to make all possible efforts to recover his body.
The college principal, B M Shinde, told TOI, "Shendge earlier stayed with his sister. He recently shifted to the hostel. The students from various engineering branches went for a picnic on their own without taking permission from the college for visiting the water body. We got information of the drowning incident from the police after 11pm on Tuesday. We shall contemplate apt action against the 10 other students after Shendge's post-mortem."
The students present in the college stated that some of their peers had organised the picnic. Regular classes were conducted at the institute on Wednesday.