Two tourists from Tamil Nadu drowned in two separate incidents while clicking selfies at popular Goa beaches, police said on Sunday, 17 June.
According to Police Inspector Jivba Dalvi, Dinesh Kumar Ranganathan, 28, from Vellore in Tamil Nadu drowned when he was clicking selfies along with two other tourists near a rocky stretch located next to a creek, which empties into the sea at Baga beach in North Goa.
"Two of them managed to come out after a heavy wave pulled all of them into the sea. However, the third, Dinesh, drowned. The dead body was fished out later," the official said, adding that the incident occurred late on Sunday.
The other incident also occurred near a rocky outcrop at Sinquerim beach, located in North Goa, when a wave pulled Sasikumar Vasan, 33, also a native of Tamil Nadu, into the sea, resulting in his drowning.
Postmortem examinations in both cases have been conducted and the bodies will be handed over to their relatives soon, the police official said.
This comes just a week after three tourists, including a police constable and his brother, from Akola in Maharashtra drowned in the Arabian Sea at Goa’s famous Calangute beach near Panaji.
On 11 June, a group of 14 tourists from Akola had arrived in Goa by a train around 4 am, Calangute police inspector Jivba Dalvi said.
Despite specific signage that was put up along the shoreline warning people against venturing into the sea, the group went in at 6 am, Dalvi told The New Indian Express.
Five of the tourists got pulled into the waters due to the strong undercurrents, of which three drowned while two others managed to swim to the shore, police said quoting eyewitnesses.
(This article was first published on The News Minute and has been republished with permission)
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