Mumbai cops avert suicide, save teen near Aarey lake

MUMBAI: A teenaged schoolboy who had penned a ‘goodbye note’ and left his Goregaon home after an argument with his mother was rescued from near a lake at Aarey Colony by a team of policemen on Friday. The 15-year-old had already dived into the lake once, police said.
The boy’s father, a banker, has written a letter of appreciation to the police commissioner, Sanjay Pandey, grateful to the police team for saving his son.
On Friday, the teenager had an argument with his mother over pending homework assignments given by his coaching class. Around 5.30pm, he left the house after writing a farewell note for his parents and letters addressed to his friends, which said he would meet them “once they grew old”.
When his parents found the notes, they panicked and started looking for him. Around 7pm, the father approached Vanrai police station.
Assistant inspector Srirang Chintaman overheard the father narrating a phone conversation with his wife about their son having called her from a passerby’s phone. He had forbidden her from looking for him and bade her goodbye before hanging up.
Chintaman dialled back on the passerby’s phone and asked for his location. On learning that the youngster had ventured into Aarey Colony, Chintaman directed sub-inspector Sangram Gawde to rush to Aarey with the boy’s father and complete the paperwork later.
“It was peak hour and the Western Express Highway was clogged with north-bound traffic. To save time, Gawde took me on his bike. On the way, Chintaman alerted Aarey police,” the boy’s father wrote in his letter to the police commissioner.
Assistant inspector Ulhas Kolam from Aarey police station was looking around a lake near Chhota Kashmir when Gawde and Chintaman reached there. The three cops used their phone torches as it was dark. “They found my son seated by the lake soaked and covered in mud. By that time, my son had already jumped into the water once and changed his mind,” the boy’s father wrote.
Kolam said he and his colleagues were anxious as the lake, a visarjan point, was deep and dotted with dense vegetation. The teenager was taken to the nearby Aarey police station to change and the zonal DCP counselled him and his parents. “We will stay indebted to the three policemen...I request that this work be acknowledged in their service record,” the father wrote in his letter.