Several agencies, including the Coastal police and the Indian Coast Guard (ICG), are scouring the sea off the Kovalam coast since late Sunday after a 31-year-old man from Jagathy in the city was reported missing from near the Sea Rock beach here.
The Vizhinjam Coastal Police said Praveen Gopakumar, the grandson of the State Assembly’s first Speaker, R. Shankara Narayanan Thampi, and a programme producer for television channels, had reached the beach around 10.30 p.m. on Sunday along with four of his friends. After having food from a hotel on the beach, Praveen, the son of Oleena S. Thampi and the late Gopakumar, is said to have walked to the sea, ‘to wash his feet.’ He was probably swept away by waves, between 11.30 p.m. and midnight. With no sign of Praveen returning, his friends raised an alarm, following which locals alerted the police.
The Coastal Police, which received the alert at 12.20 a.m., despatched a search and rescue boat. With Praveen remaining untraceable even in the morning, the search was intensified with the ICG, the Marine Enforcement, local fishermen, and members of the coastal vigil committee too joining in.
The search was on even late into the night on Monday. Stuart Keeler, Circle Inspector, Vizhinjam, said more than 15 people had lost their lives in the past one year after being washed away by the waves into the sea near Kovalam, with several jagged rocks adjoining the beach making it a high-risk area.
“There are clear instructions that no one should venture in the water after 11 p.m. That is seldom adhered to,” he said.
City Police Commissioner H. Venkatesh, who pointed out that a software engineer from Andhra Pradesh had lost his life in similar fashion only last month in Kovalam, said discussions would be held to see whether there was anything that the police could do to prevent such accidents.
The reluctance of people to heed warnings and danger boards kept at several points, warning them not to venture into the water, particularly near the Light House and near the Vizhinjam bollard pull test facility, where sharp rocks have claimed several lives over the years, has led to the accidents, said Suresh Babu, a home guard who was posted near the bollard after last month’s accident.
Police, Coast Guard scouring seas for missing man
People urged to heed danger warnings
