CHENNAI: Reiterating that all humanly possible efforts were made to save Sujith Wilson, Commissioner of Revenue Administration J Radhakrishnan on Wednesday said, “Rescue and retrieval are different and discussing how the retrieval took place at micro-level is against ethics as per the guidelines. All departments worked in coordination but unfortunately the result was negative. Now, our focus should be on closing down unused borewells.”
Responding to queries about charges that the body of Sujith was not fully recovered and not shown after retrieval the CRA said, “The Standard Operating Procedure was strictly followed while taking out the body. ”When Kumbakonam fire accident took place, the bodies were shown on channels and there was widespread criticism. The Centre has issued a guideline titled ‘Management of Dead’ which explains how dismembered body should be handled with respect. The parents were briefed at every stage. If we go into details, it will be against the guidelines.”
Asked if the guidelines would be changed to avoid such failures he said, “There are certain limitations in SOP. Level One Response is from the district administration. Level Two is the State level response. Level. Three will be national-level response. According to the guidelines, borewell incident is an accident. There are two methods to be followed for rescue operations and we followed both. Such issues will be dealt with in the post-event analysis under the head,‘Lessons Learnt.”
Radhakrishnan further said, “More than 600 personnel from NDRF, SDRF, Fire and Rescue Services, police, Revenue and volunteers were engaged in rescue operations. Please don’t second guess on-field workers. Post event analysis will be done because after any such incident there will is a lesson to be learnt. That will be shared with you in a transparent manner.”