Five daily wage laborers, all women, were charred to death when a high tension power line snapped and fell on the auto they were traveling in Sri Satya Sai district of Andhra Pradesh.
The unfortunate incident occurred near Chillakondayyapalli village on Thursday morning, when the large passenger auto was carrying 12 labourers for farm work. The auto driver and eight other women managed to escape with injuries, while the auto was gutted. The injured were rushed to a nearby hospital.
In a statement ridiculed by the opposition parties, Andhra Pradesh southern power distribution company CMD Haranatha Rao has put the blame on a squirrel, saying that the tiny animal climbed on the pole, caused a short-circuit and thereby the heavy wire snapped. The official said that a committee would probe the incident “so as to avoid such cases in future.”
TDP general secretary Nara Lokesh ridiculed the reason given, launching an attack on the ruling YSRCP.
“Strange things like squirrels causing high tension wire snapping can occur only in the Jaganmohan Reddy regime. Five women from poor families burned to death and instead of conducting a thorough enquiry, the government is making the officials offer some strange theories,” Lokesh said.
Chief Minister Jaganmohan Reddy expressed deep shock over the incident and directed the authorities to provide an ex-gratia of Rs 10 lakh each to the kin of the deceased. Reddy ordered the officials to provide quality medical care to those injured in the mishap.
The APSPDCL official had earlier announced Rs five lakh ex-gratia each for the families of the deceased and two lakh for the injured.
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