The police have recorded two more drownings in less than 24 hours. In the late afternoon of Monday February 5, the bodies of Yuvrajsing Hustabir, a 43-year-old welder, and Aswan Horil, a 40-year-old bricklayer, both residents of the village of Upper Dagotière, were recovered by members of the Mauritian Police Intervention Group (GIPM). The two men and six other work colleagues had gone there on Sunday February 4 for an afternoon of relaxation.
Similarly,on the evening of Sunday February 4, the bodies of two teenagers, Drishtiresh Bhoyrub, 17, and Dugambaresh Rhungen, 18, were fished out of the Moonkharry river in the village of Mare Tabac. They had gone swimming with a group of friends.
The prolonged absence of these two Upper Dagotière residents worried their relatives. Searches carried out at dusk on Sunday February 4 turned up nothing. On the afternoon of Monday February 5, a missing person’s report was filed for the two men at the Saint Pierre police station. Lutchmee Hustabir, 39, a lab attendant, reported her husband missing at 6pm on Sunday February 4. Aswan Horil’s disappearance was only reported from 11am on Sunday February 4 by his brother-in-law, Gurudev Bheersah, aged 45.
It was the local resident Vinay Panchoo, aged 39, who alerted the Saint Pierre police of the presence of two bodies floating in this lake on Monday February 5. A team of police officers led by Sergeant Friquin reached the scene at 5:35 pm to secure the area, before forensic technicians and officers of the GIPM arrived to recover the two bodies.
They were then taken to the Victoria Hospital morgue in Candos for an autopsy. The autopsy, carried out on the morning of Tuesday February 6 by Dr. Sudesh Kumar Gungadin, head of the police forensic department, attributed the death to asphyxia due to drowning.
An investigation has been initiated at the Saint Pierre police station to shed light on the circumstances of this double tragedy. The six colleagues and friends of the two victims have already been questioned by the investigators. They confirmed that they had been with the victims, who at some point left them. They believed that Yuvrajsing Hustabir and Aswan Horil had returned to their homes.
