3-yr-old pulled out of borewell in Rajasthan after 10 days, dies

A three-year-old girl, who fell into a 150-ft-deep borewell in Rajasthan’s Kotputli-Behror district, was brought out in an unconscious state on Wednesday after a 10-day rescue operation carried out by the NDRF and SDRF teams and rushed to hospital, officials said.

The girl, Chetna, was immediately taken to Kotputli’s BDM hospital where a team of doctors declared her dead, the officials said. NDRF team in-charge Yogesh Meena said when the girl was taken out, she was unconscious.

The child had fallen into the borewell on December 23 while playing in the agriculture farm of her father in Badiyali Dhani under the Sarund police station area.

Initially, efforts were made to pull the girl out of the borewell with the help of a ring, but all attempts failed. Then a piling machine was brought to the spot and a parallel pit was dug.

Till Monday, the rescue teams of the NDRF and SDRF were hopeful of completing the operation and reaching the girl, but they could not succeed in saving the child as layers of sedimentary rock compounded the drilling work, the officials said.

“Digging eight feet of soil is not a big deal. But we cannot effect a blast if there is a stone. Due to the hard rock, we are facing difficulty in drilling,” Meena had said on Tuesday.

On Monday, District Collector Kalpana Agarwal met the girl’s family and explained to them the problems being faced in carrying out the rescue operation. The family members had earlier accused the district administration of being negligent.

On December 28, a video of Chetna’s mother Dholi Devi surfaced in which she could be seen pleading with folded hands to rescue her daughter.