BHOPAL: Two teenagers, Ujwal Sharnagat (16) and Snehal Patle (14), died on the spot after coming in contact with the electric current running through the metallic fencing around the agricultural plot in Bhalghat district.
The incident happened on Thursday in Borundakalan village under the Kirnapur police station area. The plot belongs to a villager, Tekchand Ithole.
According to informed sources, the power supply is shut down between 9 and 9.30 am, usually. However, on Thursday, just when the two boys entered the agricultural plot in search of a parrot, the power supply resumed, and they got electrocuted.
Among the two deceased teenagers, while 16-year-old Ujawal was the eldest child of his family, 14-year-old Snehal was the youngest in his family.
While confirming the tragic incident, the additional SP (ASP-Balaghat) Adarsh Kant Shukla told TNIE on Friday that a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder was lodged under Section 105 BNS, and the owner of the plot has been arrested.
Notably, the concerned Borundakalan village is located close to the Kanha Tiger Reserve’s buffer zone and is infested with regular ingress of antelopes and wild boars, causing major destruction to the standing crops.
Laying of electric traps by farmers to save crops from antelopes, wild boars and smaller herbivores or similar traps being laid for bush hunting by poachers, are among the prominent causes of unnatural deaths of leopards and tigers in the State.
As per details submitted by the forest department’s wildlife wing in the MP High Court in response to a petition filed by wildlife activist Ajay Dubey over the deaths of 55 tigers in the State in 2025 (highest in any year since the launch of Project Tiger in 1973), out of the 11 unnatural deaths/poaching related deaths of tigers, eight were due to electrocutions.
Significantly, none of the incidents was motivated by the poaching of tigers or the trafficking of tiger body parts.
As per sources in the department, most of the electrocutions happened due to electric current run by the farmers to save their crops from herbivores, which are tailed by big carnivores like tigers and leopards.