Lure of waves drowns warning board at Marina

As per police records, 33 persons had drowned in Marina beach in 2015 and 15 have already lost their lives this year till July. There are no lifeguards on duty at the beach and scores of policemen who are on patrol duty are easily overwhelmed by an average crowd of 30,000 on week days and about 50,000 at weekends. 

The commandos of Coastal Security Group, who are primarily trained to guard the coast against possible terrorist infiltration, smuggling and are deployed occasionally to rescue stranded fishermen, are doubling up as lifeguards. They have managed to save some lives. However, there are no trained lifeguards appointed exclusively to protect the throng of people at the most popular tourist spot in the city. 

The beach comes under the jurisdiction of two police stations, Anna Square and Marina, and both the stations depute their personnel to patrol the beaches when they have no VIP bandobust and other law and order duties which the policemen say they have almost every day. City police also deploy mounted police. 

Police officials say it is impossible for them to control such a large crowd and they cannot cordon off the entire beach front. “What is needed is awareness. We try our best to stop people from entering the sea but they do not listen. We also depute more policemen at the beach during weekends as the crowd ismore. But accidents still happen,” a police official attached to the Marina police said. 

However, locals see this as an excuse. “The efforts of policemen are not enough to stop the people from swimming in the sea. People should realise that what they are doing is illegal and they will face action for that. They stop when the policemen ask them not to enter and enter the waters the moment policemen move way,” Lourd Nathan, a local resident said. 

Police officials at Marina and Anna Square admitted that not even a single person had been booked for violating the police order and swimming in the sea. “Swimming will stop if police penalise those who violate the ban,” Sivasamy, a resident said.