London: a 21 year old student Ajmer She has died after being swept away at sea by high tide while going to sea in Essex with five friends.
Sujali Sahu, studying computer science at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), had gone to the beach near Clacton Pier with a group of friends on the morning of July 19.
One of Sahu’s friends, Onkar Singh (24), an Indian student at ARU and representative of Indian National Student Association (INSA) UK told TOI: “They went to the beach in a big group including a family with children and sat on the sand. Water. Six of them, all Indian students at ARU, went to sea and had fun. Just then a strong tide came and hit them and the sand slid down. Sujal was standing at that time. Then another straight tide came and the land slid further down. During this everyone started drowning. The rest of the group on the ground called the Coast Guard. Five of them were rescued by the Coast Guard but Sujal drowned in the water and could not be traced. The five people who were rescued were not injured. Sahu’s body was not found by a fisherman till July 23, near village Jaivik, three miles from the beach.
Singh, a former rest officer of the ARU Students’ Union, knew Sahu well and described him as nice, polite, friendly and accommodating. He said he was enjoying it in Cambridge where he had been living for two years.
Sahu’s father, Bhagwan and mother Usha had mortgaged their house in Ajmer to pay for their education in Britain. They both had to take out a loan to pay for their flight tickets and arrived in Essex two days ago. He is now in a hotel with his elder sister, fasting, After the post-mortem, his Hindu cremation will take place in the UK.
Essex Police confirmed that his death was not being treated as suspicious and that his body was handed over to the coroner.
INSA UK is launching a fundraiser for the family. Sahu was their only son. “The mother was told only on Wednesday that she had died. She didn’t know in advance because there were concerns that she would be sad. The entire family is devastated,” Singh said. Bhagwan had gone to identify the dead body along with a representative of the University Students’ Union. “The five friends who were with him are not stable and all are in shock. None of them are in a position to go to see the body,” Singh said.
A spokesperson for the Indian High Commission in London said the mission is in touch with the family and has worked closely with UK agencies to help the family in distress as much as possible.
Amit Tiwari, President of INSA UK, said: “INSA UK would like to pay tribute to Sujal… Indian students are a close-knit community and their loss hurts us.”
Sujal’s relatives in Ajmer’s BK Kaul colony initially kept her death a secret from her parents – Bhagwan Sahu and Usha. Sujal’s sister Vrati, who is pursuing MBBS in Udaipur, also decided not to inform her parents about the recovery of her body immediately. Sujal’s father, Lord: SahuWorks in a cosmetic company.
“Sujal was an intelligent student and the entire colony was proud of him. He was a loving and helpful boy,” added Suresh Malik, neighbor of Sujal’s parents. Another neighbor Preeti Jain said that Sujal had called her mother on July 17, a day before going to the beach and inquired about her health. “That was the last time they talked to him,” she said.
“He (Sujal) was going to complete his course in the next four months. He had promised me that he would come back within six months of completing his studies. We did not cook any food in our house the day after we got the news,” said another neighbor.
Sujal, who completed her schooling in Ajmer, has a lot of friends in the city. Rakesh, one of them, said that they all cried after hearing about Sujal’s death. He said that many of them came to his house to mourn but the house was locked as the parents are not in the US.
(with inputs from Ajmer)
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