Hyderabad, March 28: Senior IPS officer Rajiv Trivedi has created history by becoming the most senior and the fastest man to swim across the Palk Strait. The 50-year old Additional Director General of Police from the State achieved the feat when he swam across the Palk Strait from Sri Lanka to India along with a DSP from Mumbai, Balasaheb Ramchandra Ghadge, on March 25.
The duo started the 30 km long swim from Talaimannar coast at 4 a.m. on March 25 and reached Dhanushkodi in India at 4.30 p.m. after swimming for 12 hours and 31 minutes non-stop. This makes it the fastest swim across the Palk Strait. Mr. Trivedi and Mr. Ghadge are the first police officers from India to successfully swim across the Palk Strait.
“The most difficult thing was not being able to see anything. Apart from being scary, this leads to a sense of disorientation. The only point of reference remains the light of the support boat. The danger in the sea is mostly from sharks, snakes, jellyfish and other poisonous bugs. We used an imported electronic shark repellent device which was hung from the support boat, “Mr. Trivedi said.
“I kept praying to Lord Ramnathaswamy to bring us back safely to Rameswaram. Wife Udaya and sons Prasoon and Prashant, who are all good swimmers and athletes, too, were a tremendous source of strength for me”, he said. Mr. Trivedi dedicated his feat to AP Police.
Earlier, Mr. Trivedi swam across the Strait of Gibraltar in 2001. In the same year, he also swam for nearly 13 hours in the freezing English Channel starting from England and reached France but could not touch land on the French Coast as he was thwarted by the ocean currents.
The swim was observed by M. Vijay Kumar, an official of the Swimming Federation of India. The Sri Lankan Navy guided the swimmers in the Sri Lankan waters, and the role was taken over by the Indian Coast Guard once the swimmers crossed the International maritime boundary line.
–Agencies