india

Updated: Sep 16, 2019 17:52 IST

The body of a seven-year-old boy was found on the beach of Bengal’s popular beach town Digha on Monday morning, two days after he went missing from a point about a kilometre away on Saturday.

Abir Dhara, who was playing on the beach when his parents went to bathe in the sea, went missing on Saturday afternoon.

Marina Ghat, where his body was washed ashore on Monday morning, is about a km away from Jagannath Ghat, where he was playing two days ago.

The boy’s parents, Ranjit and Purnima, frantically looked for him but to no avail. On Saturday night, they lodged a missing complaint.

“We suspect that the boy went into the water alone without anyone noticing it. On Monday morning, some locals saw the body on the shore and informed us. His parents identified the body,” said Basukinath Banerjee, officer-in-charge of Digha police station.

“We kept a watch on Abir when we were in the water. But after a point, I lost sight of him. When we walked out of the water around 1 pm, we could not find him. I thought that he was taken away by somebody,” said Ranjit. Abir’s elder sister, who is nine, was also on the beach and playing with sand but she, too, did not notice when her brother took the fatal steps into the water.

The boy’s death is the fifth such incident since August 11 in the beach town.

Police officers and Digha Shankarpur Hoteliers Association have blamed reckless behaviour by tourists that often invite disaster.

“Often accidents take place since some tourists do not follow instructions when they go into the water. While some venture in during high tide, some go to a distance they should not,” Arvind Anand, additional superintendent of police (rural) in East Midnapore district had said recently.

The police have deployed civic volunteers, members of the natural disaster management team and nulias (locals adept in swimming in the sea) for the safety of tourists.

“Policemen regularly alert tourists over the public address system warning them not to go into the water in an inebriated state and, in any case, not to venture deeper than waist level,” said Bipradas Chakraborty, joint secretary of the Digha Shankarpur Hoteliers Association.