MUMBAI, November 6: Yet another girl drowned at Aksa beach on Thursday afternoon. This is the fifth death by drowning there in four days. Four boys from Andheri had died last Sunday.

Today's drowning makes a complete mockery of BMC additional commissioner Ratnakar Gaikwad's claim that the beach was well-manned by life guards (Express Newsline November 6). According to vendors at the beach, the body of the unidentified woman, in her early twenties, was first seen floating in the shallow waters behind the Resort Hotel at about 2.30 pm. They immediately alerted the Malvani police who arrived an hour later.The unclaimed body was subsequently removed from the beach after five hours.

Police sub-inspector Shinde who was at the spot said the woman must have drowned in the morning and added that the possibility of suicide could not be ruled out as the body was still unclaimed after several hours.

The two BMC life guards who have virtually abandoned the beach were of course not present at the site even today.

In fact, David Gudekar and Ramesh Patil, the two life guards come to the beach so rarely that this reporter had to speak to several people before someone could vaguely recollect their appointment.

Praful Mhatre, who has been running a bhel-puri stall at the beach for the last 10 years, said: ``These two (life guards) were last seen here during the Ganpati immersion. But they have not turned up even once during the Diwali holidays when the picnickers were out in full force.''

The life guards seem to have conveniently passed on their burden onto the villagers and the vendors on the beach, with whom they have deposited a life jacket. Mhatre said that the life guards had never ever used it. Proudly pulling out the sky-blue life jacket from under his stall Praful said, ``They deposited this with me when they first came here. There were two initially but last year they took away the more attractive one,'' Mhatre claimed.

According to Sama Shetty, a vada-pav and tea-stall owner on the beach, almost 99 per cent of rescues have been done by the ``vendors and neighbouring villages.'' But not all are as fortunate. Says another villager,``My cousin and I tried to rescue two boys in August this year but they died despite our best efforts. We didn't know who they were, we were simply trying to help but the police interrogated us for the next eight days.''

This is evidently a touchy issue with the locals. ``We can only warn people but we don't have any formal power unlike a BMC life guard who can flash an identity card and prevent people from entering the waters. When we try to do so picnickers don't like it,'' says Shetty.

The beach is patrolled by constables but as most of them admittedly can't swim they are of little help in times of such crises. Gaikwad, when contacted , claimed that he had not received any information regarding the incident. On being asked whether the incident did not show a lack of application on the part of the life guards, he claimed that BMC had, during a recent review, found the performance of the life guards had been found to be satisfactory. He also promised to look into the incident. ``But one can't expect the additional municipal commissioner to rush to the beach if a woman drowned in the waters there,'' he added.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.