``They did not tell anybody where they were going. Nobody asked them because they often played together,'' said a neighbour fighting back his tears. Thirty-three people have met a watery grave at Aksa this year, the highest toll registered at the beach in a decade.

The BMC will now seek volunteers' help to man the one-and-a-half-kilometre-long beach. Deputy Mayor Gopal Shetty, who visited the beach this afternoon, accompanied by BMC officials and Senior Police Inspector D G Shinde of the Malwani police, said local residents would roped in to patrol the beachwhich extends from behind the `INS Hamla' up to the Erangal village. Currently, it is manned by just four lifeguards. After Express Newsline carried a series of stories on BMC's failure to prevent deaths at Aksa in November last year, the BMC had transferred two lifeguards from Juhu beach to Aksa.

``Yesterday when the beach was full of picnickers, only one lifeguard, Rajnikant Marshalkar, was present. His colleague, M G Satpute, had left early and though hundreds of people were present, nobody even noticed the boys drowning. Marshalkar was pacing up and down the beach, and it was not possible for him to be everywhere at the same time,'' said Praful Mhatre, a resident of Aksa village, who runs a soft-drink stall on the beach.

However, villagers do not blame the lifeguards for the increasing deaths.

``The BMC and the INS Hamla must put up warning signs along the beach to drive the message home. At present, the warning signs are displayed only at four to five places. These are obviously not takenseriously,'' said Ashok Thakur, the president of the Gram Seva Mandal of Aksa village.

BMC now plans to empower villagers and members of the Gram Seva Mandal to prevent drunk picknickers and children from venturing in.

Shetty has called a meeting at the BMC head office tomorrow which would be attended by the suburban collector, the municipal commissioner and other officials. ``We will come up with some concrete solution in a week's time,'' assured Shetty.

But according to Assistant Commissioner of Police, Malad Division, Laxmikant Danekar, the situation at Aksa will not improve unless at least 20 lifeguards were deployed. ``While eight to ten can guard the beach on week-days, all 20 lifeguards should be deployed on public holidays when the beach is full of visitors,'' Danekar said.

The onus is on you

For decades, the siren-like allure of Aksa has lured people to its golden sands and deep blue waters. The tragedy of a city that has so few open public spaces is now compounded by a maneatingpicnic spot. In the last ten years, the beach has claimed over a 100 holidayers, a majority of whom were innocent school children.

The deaths follow a sickeningly familiar pattern. Swimmers are sucked into Aksa's rapidly shifting sands and swirling eddys. Friends who dive in to help tragically end up increasing the body count.

The BMC's lifeguards have miserably failed to patrol the beach. Aksa's undercurrents and moving sands are its geographical peculiarities, and nothing can be done about it except perhaps to shut the beach to the public.

The onus is squarely on the people. Ignorance is no excuse, as the beach has been claiming lives with unfailing regularity for decades. The victims of Sunday's tragic drownings were, after all, five unsupervised and unmindful children between 10 and 14 years.

Ask your children to steer clear of this beach. In fact, ask them to avoid going to beaches altogether, if unsupervised by parents.

Aksa is a tragedy of nature. Let's prevent it from becoming a man-made oneas well.