Navi Mumbai: Two young professional trekkers from different suburbs of Mumbai were rescued by a local guide from around the base of Garbett Point, Matheran, on Sunday. Borivli resident Amit Agarwal, 22, and Andheri resident Smriti Jain, 28, started their trekking from the Bhivpuri suburban railway station (Mumbai-Karjat local route) at around 1 am but lost the trek path by wrongly taking a left turn in between and ended at a no man’s point of a hill, down opposite their destination.They called up police helpline number ‘Dial 112’ through sharing their location, prompting Neral police into action mode. Police constable Amol Dakhore alerted the base point Sagachi Wadi guide, Sandip Nirguda, at around 5.30 am and shared the GPS map location of the trekkers. The trekkers were in a three-hour-long operation.Their night trek turned futile on the high-risk path around which leopard movements were reported. The two were lucky that they did not face any wildlife, including serpentines, while scaling up.The guide Nirguda said, “The two walked towards the Garbett Point trek after alighting at the suburban station. They were rightly trekking through the hilly terrain but at one point the two had to take a right turn but moved on the wrong path mistakenly to reach the end of the pathway atop a hill.”After realising their move on a wrong path with little knowledge about how to safely return, the SOS call they shared location with the police. Nirguda left home alone and successfully rescued the missing trekkers by the time Dakhore reached his tribal hamlet. The two trekkers reached the house of Nirguda by 7 am and were offered water, tea and biscuits.Constable Dakhore said, “Agarwal works in an agri-tech company in Mumbai. We have no information about Jain. The two did many treks in the past. They left for Mumbai at around 8.30 am after completing the process but their trek remains incomplete.”Nirguda said, “The two got stuck on a hill at around the back end of the Garbett Point and found no way to move forward. Trek without a guide turns out into situations like this.”
