Search and rescue operation called off in Dahanu

 A day after a boat capsized in the Dahanu, the search & rescue (S&R) operation by the Palghar district administration and Indian Coast Guard was called off on Sunday after confirming that 31 of the 34 students on the boat were rescued while three drowned.

In the morning, the ICG launched a helicopter from ICG air station Daman, however, it was called back after the district administration said that the missing students have been accounted for.

Students of KL Ponda High School and Junior College – aged between 16 and 19, mostly from Class XI and XII, had paid Rs 50 each for the boat ride – however, during a selfie act the boat tilted and turned turtle around one nautical miles from the coast.

Three 17-year-old girls -- Sonal Bhagwan Surati, Janhavi Harish Surati and Sanskruti Mayavanshi - died after the double-decker boat capsized off the Dahanu coast.

Thirty-one students and the boatman was rescued during the S&R operations by ICG, Palghar administration and local fishermen.

The owner of the boat Dhiraj Ambire, boatman Parth Ambire and helper Mahendra Ambire were arrested on Saturday evening.

The trio was booked under IPC sections 304 A (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 280 (rash navigation of vessel), 282 (conveying person by water for hire in unsafe or overloaded vessel), 34 (common intention).