Mangalore, December 20: In a tragic incident, a student of a prestigious college of the city was drowned under mysterious circumstance in the Arabian sea off Thannirbavi.
The deceased has been identified as Sudaiva (17), a first year PU student of Sharada College. He was the only son of HB Ganapthi Gowda and Meenakshi couple based in B Hosalli village of Mudigere Taluk in Chikmagalur district.
The victim's body was handed over to the family members on Monday after conducting post-mortem at Wenlock hospital here.
Dozens of aggrieved friends and classmates of Sudaiva gathered outside the Wenlock mortuary to pay their last respects.
MB Puranik, Chairman of Sharada Education Trust tried to console the victim's parents and family members, who could not get any information about the tragedy from the management of hostel and college.
Speaking after observing one minute silent prayer for the deceased, Puranik, who is also the President of the district unit of Vishwa Hindu Parishad said, the boy himself invited the tragedy by going out of the hostel without informing the management.
Most of the teachers and staff of the college and hostel were not present on the occasion.
Reliable sources said that a group of six students including Sudaiva had left for Thannirbavi beach from their college hostel located in Kadri at around 2:30pm on Sunday.
While the group was enjoying sea water, Sudaiva met watery grave as a giant wave swept him into the deep sea. The students helplessly watched the scene as a huge wall of wave separated Sudaiva from them.
Panambur police said the victim's body was recovered from the water at around 5:30pm.
Who is responsible?
According to Sudaiva's parents, the management of the hostel is entirely responsible for the tragedy. “How did the warden allow the boys to go to beach on Sunday? How can they claim that they were not aware when six boys went out of the hostel?” asked Sumithre Gowda, uncle of the victim.
“One Saturday we had requested the hostel warden to allow the boy to go with us for one day. The warden had strictly warned us that they will not allow any student to go out of the hostel apart from the one hour time duration between 2:00pm and 3:00pm on Saturdays. He also had said that students are strictly prohibited from going out of the hostel on Sundays,” Gowda recalled asking “then how come he allowed the boys to go to beach?”
He said despite the incident occurring on Sunday afternoon, neither the hostel warden nor any other officials from the management of the hostel or college informed the family members about it. “We came to know about the tragedy from other sources”, he said.
“Grabbed money”
Sumithre Gowda, controlling his emotions said that his brother Ganapathi Gowda (victim's father) never imagined that his decision to admit his son in a prestigious college of Mangalore was a great blunder.
“Ganapathi works at Adichunchanagiri Institute of Technology (AIT) in Chikmagalur and his wife Meenakshi is a warden at a Ladies Hostel in Mudigere. They decided to give good education to their only son and sent him to Mangalore. They did not hesitate to give Rs 35 thousand as donation demanded by the Sharada College. Moreover, they were paying Rs 2,500 hostel fee month. After grabbing thousands of rupees from us, now the management of the college and hostel is behaving very irresponsibly with us. The Sharada Trust only knows how to grab money from the students,” said the elder uncle of the victim.
Panambur police has registered a case.
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