Ride gone wrong: Three youths drown in Ahmedabad lake as their boat capsizes

The fourth person managed to swim out of the water, firefighters said

Ahmedabad | September 2, 2025 11:53 PM IST

Station Fire Officer Manu Solanki said, “We managed to retrieve two bodies within the first half-an-hour, but it took a lot of time to find the third body"

Three youths on Tuesday drowned in a lake in Ahmedabad’s Sarkhej, police said. The deceased, identified as Jeet Dileep Parmar (17), Vishal Kishor Solanki (18), and Pappu Manu Chavda (20), were among four people who had gone on a boat ride in the lake when it capsized, they said.

The fourth person managed to swim out of the water, firefighters said.

The Ahmedabad Fire and Emergency Services (AFES) received a call around 5.42 pm and were informed that some youths had drowned in the lake in Sarkhej. A team from Prahladnagar fire station reached the spot. Divers were deployed to retrieve the bodies.

Station Fire Officer Manu Solanki said, “We managed to retrieve two bodies within the first half-an-hour, but it took a lot of time to find the third body. It was only found by 8 pm.” The lake is 12-13-feet-deep and firefighters had to dredge the lake bed with their boat to locate the third body.

Notably, this process would have been faster if the firefighters had access to some help. While the Gujarat Police recently purchased two underwater remote operated vehicles (ROVs), the AFES is in the final stages of procuring one for itself. ROVs use sonar methods to map underwater areas to locate bodies and retrieve them.

Sarkhej police were in the process of filing an accidental death report at the time of going to print.

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