Police have named the eight students who drowned off Diveagar beach in Raigad district, Maharashtra, India, on Thursday, Oct. 1, 2026, as Yash Kiran Wankhede, Soham Tukaram Bhandwalkar, Tanmay Dattatray Vahile, Kaustubh Sandeep Daund, Kaivalya Satish Wasankar, Rajveer Yuvraj Vahile, Pranav Ramdas Bansod and Sumit Bharat Ahire, all 16 years old.
A picnic turned fatal when the boys waded into the sea and the water carried them away, police said. Winners Academy, a private coaching institute in Alandi, Pune district, had enrolled the dead in Class XI and Class XII.
Neither the depth of the water nor the current was correctly judged by the eight before the sea pulled them away from shore, a police official in Pune said. Forty-eight people in all made the trip to the coast — 25 boys, 17 girls and six teachers, the official said. All eight students recovered were boys, and all eight bodies were recovered.
What Police Said Happened
The group had first visited Raigad Fort and reached Diveagar in the afternoon, said Assistant Police Inspector Santosh Awati, who is in charge of the Dighi Coastal police station. The students entered the sea around 3 p.m., and workers of a local water sports club recovered the bodies of all eight by 5 p.m. after those on the beach raised an alarm.
An alert brought Search and rescue teams to the spot, and they started pulling bodies from the water. One student could not be found for hours. “By the evening, even the missing student’s body was found,” a senior police officer said.
Rescue workers, helped by Local residents, brought all eight boys out of the sea and carried them to the primary health center at Borli. Doctors there declared them dead, the officer said. Authorities sent the bodies to Shrivardhan Rural Hospital for postmortem and shifted the remaining 34 students to a hotel in Diveagar.
Police registered an accidental death report. Police personnel and local authorities are carrying out further legal and administrative formalities, the official said.
Officials Respond and Alandi Shuts Down
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis called the deaths of the Winners Academy students “extremely tragic and painful.”
Maharashtra Minister Bharatshet Gogawale visited the hospital where the dead students were taken. “It is a tragic incident. We will send the bodies back to the students’ villages after the post-mortem… We are working out way to send the rest of the people back to their places,” Gogawale told ANI on Oct. 1.
Shiv Sena MLA Mahendra Dalvi, who represents Alibag, blamed the local administration for inadequate safety precautions. “Schoolchildren have no idea about the sea. It’s not a pond, it’s the sea….They cannot gauge the high tide or the depth of the water. Moreover, these children might not even know how to swim,” Dalvi said on Oct. 1.
Local residents gathered outside Winners Academy in Alandi late on the night of Oct. 1. The Alandi Municipal Council put its seal on the academy on Friday, Oct. 2, finding that it ran without a business no-objection certificate and trade license. Alandi observed a shutdown the same day as families held last rites for the eight boys.
The 2016 Murud Drownings
Murud beach, about 140 kilometers (90 miles) south of Mumbai, was where 14 students of Pune’s Abeda Inamdar Senior College drowned on Feb. 1, 2016. Girls numbered ten among the victims, every one of whom was aged between 18 and 20. Initial information suggested that 10 students linked arms in a human chain to save four drowning campus mates and were dragged under themselves.
A picnic group of 130 included the students, Raigad police said, and about 10 staff members, including teachers, had gone along with them, College authorities said. Thirteen bodies were recovered by the Navy and the Coast Guard on Feb. 1, 2016, with Madaki Saif Ahmed’s body found the next morning, Feb. 2, 2016.
Burial grounds and crematoriums across Pune drew Hundreds of relatives and friends for the last rites. A holiday was declared by the college on Feb. 2, 2016, to pay homage to the dead, while the Maharashtra government announced compensation of Rs 2 lakh each for the next of kin.
Court Questions on Beach Safety
A probe into the drowning of the 14 students at Murud-Janjira was sought by the Bombay High Court on Feb. 3, 2016, which also asked the state to explain why beach safety rules were not being enforced there. Justice Naresh Patil headed the bench that directed the state to report on conditions at beaches across Raigad district and asked why an existing government resolution on beach safety had not been implemented.
Bhagwanji Raiyani of Janhit Manch, a nongovernmental organization, had filed the public interest litigation (PIL) petition in 2009 that the hearing revived. Civic authorities had earlier been ordered by the court to ensure the adequate appointment of lifeguards, watch towers and floodlights at night. Advocates Jamshed Mistry and Pradeep Havnur, appearing for the petitioner, held up Goa’s beach patrolling unit as a model for Maharashtra and said many of the court’s directions remained unimplemented at most beaches. The bench posted the matter to Feb. 12, 2016.
