Mumbai: Vinod Ghadge loved swimming for a cause. And that's what he was doing early on Tuesday when he drowned near Mumbai even as his wife Uma and two children, Nirmiti (10) and Siddhant (8), watched helplessly from a boat a few metres away.

The 48-year-old, who had done some of the toughest patches of seas across the world, was swimming from Dharamtar (near Uran) to the Gateway of India as a mark of protest against the 26/11 terror attacks. But he got stuck in fishing nets off Rewas around 4.15 am. The veteran swimmer drowned on what is called the beginners stretch in the swimming circles. Ghadge, a sales tax officer, had swum across the 36-km patch at least 10 times earlier.

Ghadge, a former cop who had joined the sales tax department in 1995,his younger brother Balasaheb, an assistant police commissioner, and pupil Dhananjay Komrekar (15) began their swim from Dharamtar around 2 am, family members said.

According to friends and relatives, Ghadge hit the waters 20 minutes after Balasaheb and Dhanajay set out. "He wanted to encourage Dhanajay. He had promised to catch up with him at the half-way mark," said Ulhas Pathak, who had struck a rapport with an affable Ghadge in the 80s. "Its tragic. He was one our best swimmers," Pathak said.Relatives, who were accompanying Ghadge on a boat, said the nets were not clearly visible in the night.

"Unluckily, the floats on the top of the nets were black and were not visible in the dark," said Vinay Parab, who was in the boat.

Ghadge struggled to wriggle out of the nets and even tried to clasp on to the boat. Three people from the boat jumped into the water and pulled him out. They tried to give him a CPR (mouth-to-mouth breathing) and drain the water out of his lungs, and the boat was diverted to Uran. Once on ground, he was rushed to Panvel municipal hospital where he was declared brought dead.

For Tuesdays swim, a group of 50 family members and friends had accompanied Ghadge to Uran, where they had their dinner before setting off for Dharamtar. While some of them accompanied each swimmer in three separate boats, the rest were in a fishing trawler.

As news of Ghadges death trickled in, a crowd gathered outside his house in Sales Tax quarters at Worli. His parents and youngest brother Santosh, a swimming coach, rushed in from Satara.

Ghadge, who had done more than 70 miles in a stretch, had won several awards for swimming feats. The three brothers had successfully swum across the Isle of Gibraltar and Palk Straits, among other touch patches.

Source : Central