MUMBAI: Two of the four college students who had gone swimming at a quarry in Dahisar East drowned on Saturday. The bodies of Om Singh, 19, and Piyush Gupta, 18, were retrieved from the quarry by the fire brigade and local residents and taken to a hospital. Singh lived in Andheri, while Gupta was a resident of Kandivali. Police said Singh and Gupta, along with two classmates, Aman Giri, 17, and Divyesh Patel, 17, skipped college on Saturday and headed to Shaikh Khadaan Compound near Sanjay Gandhi National Park in Dahisar East. All four were first-year Commerce students at a degree college in Kandivali. None of them knew how to swim. At around 10.20 am, Singh and Gupta ventured into deeper water while their friends remained near the edge. “Singh and Gupta started having difficulty breathing. Their friends then threw their college bags into the water so the duo could hold on to them and be pulled out, but the attempt failed,” an officer said. One of the boys then called the police control room. Police and fire brigade personnel soon arrived at the spot. Gupta and Singh were pulled out of the water and rushed to Babasaheb Ambedkar Hospital, where doctors declared them dead. Dahisar police registered accidental death reports (ADRs). Police said the abandoned quarry pits can fill with 30 to 40 feet of water during the monsoon. “Locals are aware of the danger and avoid the area, but youngsters from outside the locality often venture there for a swim during the monsoon,” an officer said.
