out of borewell
Manesar District (Haryana), June 24 (MNS/ANI): Lifeless body of four-year-old Mahi was pulled out of a nearly 70-foot deep borewell on Sunday afternoon, over 80 hours after falling into it.
Army soldiers who were involved in the rescue effort along with staff of other agencies, pulled Mahi out of the borewell a little after 1.40 p.m. on Sunday.
“Mahi has been pulled out from the borewell… she is dead,” Gurgaon District Magistrate PC Meena said.
The efforts to save five-year-old Mahi Upadhyay were televised live by national news channels, with people across the country performing religious rituals and offering prayers for her survival.
The girl fell down the well on June 20 while playing with her friends in a village in Harayana state, about 50 kilometres southwest of New Delhi.
Hundreds of soldiers, engineers and medical experts were involved in the attempt to rescue her, using heavy machinery to dig a parallel tunnel to reach her as well as pumping oxygen into the well to try to keep her alive.
Her body was carried out on Sunday wrapped in a blanket and taken to a nearby hospital where doctors declared her dead.
“Mahi was stuck at a level of 60 feet (20 metres). The diameter of the well was very narrow, nothing could be sent inside to save her,” senior police officer Anil Rao told reporters at the scene.
Gurgaon officials said she was dead even before soldiers who had been working non-stop for days finally made contact with the child just afternoon.
Backing the military was a group of men adept in digging tunnels and borewells led by a Saurav Khan.
The news shattered the thousands of people who had gathered outside the hospital and at the site of the borewell for days, hoping and praying that the girl would somehow survive.
The girl’s mother broke down on hearing that her daughter was no more.
When soldiers digging through Thursday and Friday hit rocky patches, officials decided to rope in the Rapid Metro as well as Delhi Metro, both of which have specialized digging equipment.
The girl accidentally fell into the 70-feet deep borewell at the IMT township just before midnight Wednesday, sparking a major rescue operation involving the army and civilian agencies.
According to Gurgaon police, a four-year-old boy had similarly fallen into a deep borewell in the same area Feb 26, 2004. But he was rescued, thanks to the initiative of a police officer, Usman Ali.
The father claimed that as soon as his daughter fell in the borewell, he called up the police, but they arrived one-and-a-half hours late.
For two hours the child kept crying inside the borewell, asking for help, but now she is not responding to any calls, he said.
Meanwhile, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has sought explanation from the Haryana Government to ascertain if it was the result of any negligence on its part.
Read more / Original news source: http://manipur-mail.com/lifeless-body-of-mahi-pulled/
