A pall of gloom descended over Abeda Inamdar College in Pune when it came to know that at least 13 of its students who set out on a picnic had drowned off Murud beach in Raigad district today.
P A Inamdar, trustee of the college run by the Maharashtra Cosmopolitan Education Society, said he had received information that 10 girls and four boys had drowned.
A group of more than 120 students, pursuing BSc and BCA courses, aged between 18 and 20, had left Pune this morning in two buses for the picnic.
Earlier, police had said that 13 students, 10 boys and three girls, had drowned off the beach.
The picnickers were accompanied by ten staff members including teachers, the college authorities said.
"The beach where the students had gone apparently had no life guards," Inamdar said, adding that the deceased were yet to be identified.
