Sangrur incident: HC seeks status report from Pb govt

The Punjab and Haryana High court on Monday directed the Punjab government to file a status report on the tragic incident in which a toddler died after remaining stuck in 150-foot-deep borewell for 109 hours.

The division bench of Justices A S Grewal and H S Gill also issued notices of motion to the National Disaster Response Force, Punjab government, Sangrur Deputy Commissioner, Sangrur Senior Superintendent of Police and Sunam Sub Divisional Magistrate on a petition filed by a Mohali based resident.

Two-year-old Fatehvir had fallen into the borewell shaft in Punjab's Sangrur district on June 6 and was pulled out dead on June 11.

"The court has directed Punjab Chief Secretary to file a status report in connection with this (Sangrur borewell) incident," said Additional Solicitor General of India Satpal Jain, who was representing the Centre in the case.

The court has fixed July 3 as the next date of hearing.

Jain said that Punjab chief secretary has been asked to file a status report on who was responsible for the death of the child.

The state government has also been asked to highlight the steps that it took to rescue the child as well as the measures it has taken to prevent such incidents in future, said Jain.

He also pointed out that in 2010, the Supreme Court had given directions to all the states in connection with open borewells and whether these directions had been followed in this case.

As per the directions, a warning sign must be erected near the site of the digging and a three feet wall must be built around it in addition to necessary permission being taken from the authorities to dig up the borewell, said Jain.

Petitioner Parminder Singh Sekhon had filed a public interest litigation last week, seeking issuance of directions to the respondents to "formulate policy regarding the procedure to be adopted while digging bore well and necessary precaution to be taken, so that any untoward incident will not happen again in future."

The petitioner had claimed in the PIL that the death of Fatehvir showed the "inadequate preparedness" on the part of the concerned authorities.

The incident had triggered protests in Sangrur and the opposition parties had blamed the state government for inept handling of the case.