Four-year-old-girl falls into sewage tank at Nalagarh school, dies

A four-year-old nursery student died after falling into a sewage tank at Bhagat Singh Memorial Public School at Dhabota in Nalagarh subdivision of Solan district this afternoon. Manjot Kaur’s body was found floating in the sewage tank, one of the two lids of which was missing.

According to an FIR lodged on the complaint of Jarnail Singh, who resides in the vicinity of the school, the school peon called him around 12.40 pm today from the school’s gate and told him that a small girl’s body was floating in the sewage tank located near the toilet. Jarnail promptly came inside the school and saw the body that was recognised as of nursery student Manjot Kaur. Girl’s father Jitender Singh and another resident also came to the school and took out the body. They assumed that the girl had fallen into the tank about two hours ago. They blamed the school administration for failing to ensure the safety of small children by not covering the sewage tank.

Meanwhile, the school staff was not aware about the incident throughout the day. Had the peon not seen the body, it could have remained unnoticed. “A police team took the body into custody and sent it for a postmortem. A case under Sections 125 and 106 of the BNS for an act that endangers life or personal safety and causing death by negligence has been registered. A probe is underway,” said Additional SP, Baddi, Ashok Verma.

“The sewage tank is located at a corner of the playground. It was uncovered, exposing the callousness of the school administration as small children could fall into it. The school administration informed the police about the mishap though they had got information from other people as well,” said SHO, Nalagarh, Rakesh Roy.