Three youth rescued:

Three rescued boys

A day after MV Wisdom claimed its first casualty, three boys who swam too close to stranded ship are saved by alert lifeguards manning Juhu beach.

Even as policemen from the Santacruz station and lifeguards posted at Juhu Beach are searching for the body of the teenager, who was drowned by strong currents near MV Wisdom on Friday, three children were rescued from the same fate on Saturday afternoon.

All the three were less than 11 years and had defied warnings by officials telling onlookers to stay away from the stranded ship. The 9,000-tonne MV Wisdom has been stranded on Juhu beach since June 11, after it broke away from the ship that was tugging it to Gujarat's Alang shipbreaking yard.

Sunday Mid Day witnessed the rescue operation of three unaccompanied children on Saturday afternoon, all within a span of two hours. They were then taken to the Juhu chowki to enquire where they lived.

At 1.45 pm, Adil Sheikh and Sharukh Sheikh, who had swum towards MV Wisdom, were resuced by lifeguard Harish Tiwari, after he noticed they were being pulled in by the tide.

Less than an hour later, a seven year-old, who identified himself as Abral, was rescued by lifeguard Kishore Tiwari. Abral, who was in shock, told the police amid sobs that he was visiting the beach with friends from Sion.

"With lakhs of people thronging the beach, it has now become a mad house," said Harish Tiwari, who took the Sheikh brothers home in an autorickshaw. "I spent Rs 50 to take them home, but they eventually confessed to lying about where they lived, as they were afraid of incurring their parents wrath," said Manjula Rankhambe, a constable.

Rankhambhe said that no adult had come forward to claim the children. "We will try to track down their families or else we'll hand them over to the Dongri remand home," she said.

Last Sunday, four boys almost drowned, in an attempt to get close to the ship.

Captain Harish Khatri from Directorate General Shipping, who is coordinating the operation to remove MV Wisdom, said that it was high time people understand the danger of venturing into the water to see the stranded vessel.

"The vessel will stay on the beach for at least another fortnight, till the next high tide. At the end of the day people too have to act responsibly and not depend entirely on the lifeguards to rescue them," he said.

Source: Mid Day. By Shailesh Bhatia. 26 June 2011

http://www.mid-day.com/news/2011/jun/260611-MV-Wisdom-casualty-lifeguards.htm