From Prince in 2006 to Shrishti in 2023: 'Unaddressed' borewell incidents continue to haunt India

New Delhi [India], June 8 : A two-and-a-half-year-old girl was playing with her friends when she fell into a 300-ft-deep 'uncovered' borewell in Madhya Pradesh, one of the nearly 27 million bore wells in India.
Shrishti Kushwaha died and her body was pulled out in a decomposed state on Thursday from a gruelling rescue operation that involved both State and national forces.
She had fallen into the 300 feet deep borewell, on Tuesday, located inside a farm while playing in the Mungavali village under Mandi police station limits of Sehore district.
Reacting to the incident, Sehore Superintendent of Police (SP) Mayank Awasthi said, "It is an unfortunate incident and action is being taken as per statutory rules. We have registered an FIR against the farm owner and the one who dug the borewell. We have registered a case under sections 188, 308 and 304."
The police's response to the incident of registering a case against the land owner and another person would only fill the FIR register until the cases like these will be addressed carefully, one of the most prominent cases where a child was trapped in the borewell was reported from Kurukshetra in 2006 when a six-year-old Prince fell into an open borewell.
Prince was rescued after 50 hours of rescue operation but Shrishti succumbed. This shows that after 17 long years, we have failed to address the need to cover the open borewells in the country.
In 2019, a three-year-old Sujith Wilson fell into a borewell in Tamil Nadu's Tiruchirappalli district. He also met with the same fate despite the long 80 hours of the rescue operation.
The incident caught so many eyes that the Chess Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa, who became the Under-18 World Chess Champion, dedicated his world title to the three-year-old deceased.
Earlier in December, last year, an 8-year-old boy fell into a 55-ft deep borewell in Mandavi village in the Betul district of Madhya Pradesh. Tanmay Sahu fell into the borewell while playing on the farm around 5 pm on December 6 and the rescue operation started within the next hour.
Tanmay's mother, Jyoti Sahu said, "Give me my child, whatever it may be. Would it have taken so much time even if it was a child of a leader or an officer?"
Sahu couldn't be saved despite the rescue operation which lasted for over 65 hours.
In June 2022, a child was trapped in the borewell of the Janjgir-Champa district in Chhattisgarh.
It is worth mentioning that it is the biggest rescue operation in the country that lasted 104 hours to rescue the child Rahul Sahu.
Unfortunately, no breakthrough method to rescue children falling into deep holes has emerged.
Worryingly, more such disasters are bound to occur, since there are many unused and uncovered well holes scattered in farms in several States.
Earlier in March, an eight-year-old boy fell into a 60-foot deep borewell in Madhya Pradesh's Vidisha. The boy fell into the borewell on March 14 and got stuck at a depth of 43 feet. He was supplied oxygen there. A day later, the boy died after he was rescued by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF).
As per data, provided by the National Disaster Response Force in 2019, there are approximately 27 million bore wells in India. Due to water scarcity, low rainfall, drought and depletion of underground water, a large number of bore wells are dug. When the water gets dried, the motor along with the casing pipe is removed and the outer surface of the borewell is not properly covered or sealed.
"Reports say that since 2009, more than 40 children fell into the bore well. On an average 70 per cent of the conventional child rescue operation fails," NDRF had said.
Coming back to the two-and-a-half-year-old Shrishti, doctors said that the reason behind her death is suffocation.
"The reason behind the death is suffocation. The body is in a decomposed state," Faisal Khan, the doctor told reporters, adding that she died 40 hours ago she was taken out from the borewell.