Navi Mumbai Tragedy: 43-Year-Old Man Swept Away While Swimming In Lake At Raigad Fort, Body Recovered After NDRF Operation

Navi Mumbai: A 43 year old man from Mahad, who works in Mumbai, had gone to meet his family over the weekend and it turned out to be his last visit. The man identified as Manoj Shantaram Khopkar, a resident of Raigad Wadi, a village on the foot of Raigad fort, had gone for swimming at a lake on the foot of Raigad along with his friends on Sunday evening.

“There is a Ganesh Viserjan Kund on the foot of the Raigad fort wherein the deceased and his friends had gone for swimming on the day when the district was lashed with heavy rainfall. There were videos that emerged of that day wherein tourists were struggling descend from the Raigad fort. The incident is of the same day around same time but at a different place. While swimming, the water levels suddenly increased and so did the water flow. The deceased got flown away by the water. After daily search operations by National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), the body was finally found on Wednesday evening at a location around 7 kilometres away from the incident spot,” Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP) Shankar Kale from Mahad said.

According to the police, Khopkar and his friends had been swimming since a long time in the place and at the end while, the friends started packing up for leaving, Khopkar said ‘Let me take a dip for the last time,’ and jumped and it turned out to be the last dip of his life.

“A class X passout, he was working in a private firm in Mumbai and used to keep visiting his family back in Mahad in between. He is married and had two daughters,” police inspector Rajendra Mayane from Mahad police station said. The body of the deceased was fished out by NDRF from Wagheri in Mahad Taluka.