Sangrur: Stuck in an over 120-foot deep borewell for 109 hours, a two-year-old infant was declared dead after being rescued Tuesday morning in Sangrur district. With his hands compressed with a rope, Fatehveer Singh was brought out after the operation to rescue him through a parallel tunnel dug up closeby failed. He was flown to PGI Chandigarh in an air ambulance, where he was declared dead.
The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) team, which conducted the rescue operation, had initially thought of using a rope to pull Fatehveer out but went against it suspecting injuries to the child. However, on June 6, a rope was then suspended in the borewell which had even gripped the hands of the child, but he could not be pulled out.
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Deputy Commissioner Sangrur Ghanshyam Thori said, “This method was followed on day one, but the team could not succeed and it was tried almost every day, but as the child couldn’t be retrieved via clamping, they were following another method of creating a parallel borewell and reaching the borewell via a tunnel.”
Along with the NDRF, about 200 volunteers of Green Force of Dera Sacha Sauda had also been roped in to dig parallel borewell manually.
Fatehveer fell into the unused borewell in his father field near their house at around 4.00 pm Thursday. The opening of the borewell, which had not been taken in use since 1991, was covered with a jute bag and the boy accidentally stepped on it. His mother tried to rescue him but failed.
The borewell was dug by Fatehveer family in 1984. They used to draw water from it to irrigate the fields. It was last used in 1991.