Mumbai: The search for a three-year-old child who went missing after a boat capsized during the Lalbaugcha Raja immersion on Monday morning still continues.
Saish Marde had accompanied his parents and 10-year-old sister on the boat. His parents are certain that he was pulled out and put in one of the boats but there has been no trace of the minor so far. The parents have now filed a kidnapping complaint at DB Marg police station.
“Saish was in the arms of his mother when the boat toppled. We all were in the water. His mother remembers that Saish was rescued by a person from another boat as she herself handed over the child to him,” Saish’s father Jayesh Marde, who is a contract worker at Bhaba Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in Tarapur, said. “He has not drowned. He has to be somewhere out there,” Mr. Marde said.
The police have searched all the boats that were on Girgaum Chowpatty for immersions. On Wednesday, the Coast Guard began searching in the ocean. On Thursday, the Navy was also deployed. Senior police inspector Suryakant Bangar said, “We have started checking CCTV footage of the area from Girgaum to Cuffe Parade.”
“We are not only going by the version that the child had been rescued. We are also looking at the possibility that he might have drowned,” Mr. Bangar said.
Relatives and friends of the Mardes have begun their own parallel search as well. “Since the day he went missing, we have been going around in a group of 15-20 to look for him,” Prakash Meher, a relative, said, adding most of them have been coming to the city all the way from Tarapur.
