JOIN USBescom apathy claims five-year-old boy's life
Reehan Pasha was just five. Full of life and playful like any other toddler his age. Little did the child, an UKG student at Tipu Convent, know that his one such playful moment would snuff the life out of him and send his family into eternal grief.
For, his innocent, childish prank of trying to snatch at the live electric wire that ran at an arm’s length in front of his first floor house of a three-storey building in Someshwara Nagar, saw him being electrocuted on Thursday night.
Little did his father Syed Javid Pasha, an employee at an almirah-making shop in Siddapura peacefully watching television in the hall after a day’s hard work, and his mother Amreen Taj, busy with preparing the day’s dinner in the kitchen, realise their blissful home would turn into one of mourning and their doting son cruelly snatched away by fate.
The grieving parents, residing at the rented house for over a year, are just left with their only other child, six-year-old daughter Afreen, who was a mute witness to her brother’s sudden death.
Reehan and Afreen were playing in the passage in front of the house, when Reehan tried to reach the electric wire just a feet away from the corridor. Reehan, having climbed a part of the parapet wall, caught the wire only to be electrocuted, and falling down with a wailing scream. Narrating the horrific and haunting tale, an inconsolable Javid, still in a state of shock and sorrow, told Deccan Herald that he had rushed out on hearing Reehan scream only to find his young son lying unconscious in the passage.
A crying Javid said Reehan was not breathing and three fingers on his right hand were burnt and he had suffered burns on his chest, too. “I immediately rushed him to a nearby private hospital,” but to no avail, as “he was declared brought dead.”
The boy’s body was later taken to Bowring Hospital, where an autopsy was conducted and handed over to the family. The last rites were performed on Friday evening. Siddapura police have registered a case and are investigating.
Sheer negligence
The electricity line runs so close to the first floor of the three-storey building that it is just a feet away from the passage. Though Bescom had the wire insulated with plastic covering to prevent occurence of such accidents, about a feet of electric wire was, however, left uncovered.
Reehan had caught hold of the wire exactly at that spot leading to his death. Khaleel, Reehan’s uncle, claimed that the family had complained several times to both Bescom and the house owner about a part of the wire not being insulated.
He had complained to Bescom as early as two months ago. However, no action had been taken. “If prompt follow-up action was taken by the authority then, this tragedy would not have happened,” he said.