The victims were engineering students who were in Maharashtra's Sindhudurg on a picnic.
Eight engineering students from Karnataka's Belgaum district drowned in the sea today off Vayri coast in Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra. Another three students were rescued and are undergoing treatment, police said.
According to the police, the victims were part of a group of 47 students from Maratha Engineering College in Belgaum, who were in the Wayri Beach area on a picnic. Around 30 of them ventured to take a swim in the sea. The police claimed that the students allegedly ignored warning of strong current by the locals and ventured into the sea.
Fishermen managed to rescue three of them and later retrieved the bodies of the other eight, which included three girls. Nineteen others swam to safety.
"It was the time of high tide and some students had ventured into the deep sea. After some of them began drowning, others rushed to save them. But it was too late," the police said.
Sindhudurg police control official Ravindra Ghirkar said that one of the three students rescued is in critical condition and undergoing treatment at a hospital in the nearby Malvan region.
"Three students have been rescued and are under medical observation," the police said.
"Two of them are admitted in a Malvan hospital and one girl, who is in a serious condition, is being treated at a state-run hospital in Oros," said Amogh Goankar, Superintendent of Police, Sindhudurg, to PTI.
(with inputs from PTI and IANS)