NEW DELHI: In two tragic rain-related incidents, two boys aged 7 and 13 years died of drowning and electrocution in the city, officials said on Sunday.
The first incident was reported in outer Delhi’s Ranhola area around 1.30 pm on Saturday in which a teenage boy died of electrocution while playing cricket at a ground in Kotla Vihar Phase 2.
“The boy got an electric shock from an iron pole carrying electric wire to a Gaushala situated in the corner of the ground when he went to get the ball,” DCP (outer) Jimmy Chiram said. He was rushed to Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) Hospital by a PCR (Police Control Room) vehicle, but was declared dead.
In the second incident, a seven-year-old boy drowned in the Aman Vihar area of northwest Delhi.
Police said a PCR call about the drowning of a child in the park, Sector-20, Rohini, was received at Aman Vihar police station at 6.30 pm. The police rushed to the spot, where they found that the child had been shifted to a hospital. They then reached the hospital and learnt that doctors had declared him “brought dead.”
Childhood in peril: Mourning families blame authorities
“I need my son back, I can’t live without him.” Anita Devi, mother of a 13-year-old boy who died by electrocution in Ranhola, was inconsolable. “My elder son kept screaming for help, but none came to help.” Her words trail off, making way for a fit of sobs.
Mourning the loss of her son, she accused the power company and the ‘Gaushala’ for his death. Her son, a student of Class 7 in a government school, went to play cricket with his friends on Saturday, the despairing mother said, adding that many children went to the ground to play and this can happen to anyone.
“We were playing bat-ball. My brother went to collect the ball and suddenly got stuck to an iron pole. I screamed for help, but none came,” the brother of the deceased said, weeping as he recalled the tragedy.
A person named Keshav, an eyewitness to the incident, said he heard some children shouting at the ground after which he hurriedly came out of his house. “A boy told me his brother had got an electric shock from an iron pole. I then went along with him and saw the boy who was unresponsive at that time. I tried moving him with a stick but it had started raining. Other people told me it was risky. When I saw him, he was probably dead,” the witness said, adding that the police and the father of the child arrived after 15 minutes after they took him to a hospital.
The family of the deceased and locals staged a protest, blocking the Nangloi-Najafgarh road by keeping the boy’s body, demanding compensation and punitive action against those who were responsible.
‘Park turns lake during rains’
Meanwhile, the family of the 7-year-old child who drowned in a waterlogged park in Rohini’s Aman Vihar said the park inundates everytime it rains. “No one takes care of the park. Everytime there’s rain, it gets inundated,” a relative of the deceased child said.
As per the deceased’s family, the boy a Class 3 student, went to play at the park on Saturday evening, never to come back. “The police told us that your kid has expired after drowning in the water,” the family mourned.
They blamed the authorities for the incident, saying had they taken care of the park and disallowed children from playing there, the tragedy could have been averted. “Yesterday, close to 5-feet-deep water had gathered in the park. Had the park’s security guard done his duty responsibly, asked the children not to play in such deep waters, the incident could have been avoided,” another family member said. He said, even during evening, one can find 30-40 kids playing at the park without any one to monitor them. “The authorities don’t bother,” he claimed.
Notably, this is the second such incident in past two days. On Friday, two boys aged 15 and 17 years died by drowning in a pond-like basin inundated due to heavy rainfall in Rohini’s Prem Nagar area.