Tragedy at sea in the East: 4 persons drown during outing

A boat trip to Ile-aux-Cerfs ended in a tragedy on Wednesday. Navish Preetamsingh Mungur aged 8 months, Vaguish Shamloll aged three, PC Chetlalsingh Mungur aged 30, and WPC Urmila Mewa aged 24, assigned to the Brisée-Verdière station, drowned after the boat capsized at Grande-Rivière-South East (GRSE). There were in all 16 persons, namely five policemen, six policewomen and their family members and the skipper on the boat. The police officers, assigned at Brisée-Verdière, Lallmatie and Centre-de-Flacq police stations, had organised an outing at Ile aux Cerfs. Tragedy struck at around 5:30 pm on their way back. According to first hand testimonies, a freak wave caused the boat to capsize. “At around 7:30 pm, I learned that a boat had capsized. On board, there was a group of people returning from Ile aux Cerfs. Several of them were injured,” said a witness at the scene. At 9 pm on Wednesday, the body of PC Chetlalsingh Mungur, assigned to Centre-de-Flacq station, was still missing. The National Coast Guard as well as the Police Helicopter were at the scene.   [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"18840","attributes":{"class":"media-image aligncenter wp-image-32281","typeof":"foaf:Image","style":"","width":"673","height":"330","alt":"GRSE"}}]]   PC Chetlalsingh Mungur went on the boat trip accompanied by his wife and their two children aged 8 months and 7 years old. On Thursday morning, the body of PC Mungur, aged 30, was recovered by the search and rescue team. His funerals are scheduled for today Friday 10 June, at 10 am. His son Navish, who is among the victims, will be buried at around the same time in Beau Bois cemetry in Lallmatie. The bodies of the infants and of WPC Urmila Mewa were taken to Flacq hospital for autopsies. The skipper of the boat, Marie Louis H., aged 57 and residing at GRSE, was subjected to an alcotest which returned negative. The skipper was arrested and detained. He appeared at Flacq court on Thursday morning under a provisional charge of manslaughter. The police objected to his release. “I had put my life jacket and asked the passengers to do the same but they all refused, even for the children. I insisted in vain,” he said in a statement.