Killer Borewell: From Prince in 2006 to Rahul in 2022, a look at the cases of children falling into the deadly hole

The dangers posed by borewells have come to the fore once again after the rescue of 11-year-old Rahul Sahu, who was pulled out of a borewell after a 104-hour operation in Chhattisgarh’s Janjgir Champa district.

Here are some other major borewell accidents in the past few years:

1. Prince Kumar Kashyap, Haryana, 2006
   Arguably the most talked about case in recent years, in 2006, a massive campaign was launched to save five-year-old Rajkumar Kumar Kashyap. He had fallen into a 55 feet deep borewell in a village in Kurukshetra, Haryana. Prince was safely ejected after about 48 hours as the entire nation stared at their TV screens with bated breath. Over the next few weeks, the Prince achieved celebrity status and was often seen at yagyas and events around villages in Kurukshetra district.
2. Work, June 2012
   Five-year-old Mahi died after falling into a 60-foot borewell while playing with her friends. For five days the girl could not be saved despite the great efforts of the army and the district administration. A huge rock was a major obstacle that rescuers had been fighting for three days to break. The slab was located in a horizontal tunnel between the borewell and the pit dug to save the child.
3. Sai Barhate, Maharashtra, May 2017
   A seven-year-old boy fell into a borewell in Kopargaon tehsil of Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra. He could not be saved.
4. Nadeem, Haryana, March 2019
   In March 2019, Nadeem, a one-and-a-half-year-old boy, fell into a borewell of ten inches wide and 55 feet deep in Balsamand village of Hisar district. The NDRF and the Army were pressed into service and the child was finally there. The rescue was done after a 48-hour long operation. About 40 JCB machines were pressed into service for parallel pit digging and around 100 men from Army and NDRF, besides 150 policemen, participated in the operation.
5. Seema, Rajasthan, May 2019
   Seema, a four-year-old girl, fell into a 440 feet deep borewell in Jodhpur’s Melana village. Seema was trapped inside the borewell at a depth of 260 feet and her body was pulled out after a 14-hour operation. The tube well in the field had broken and the girl’s father had left the borewell open and took out the pump for repair.
6. Fatehveer Singh, Punjab, June 2019
   Two-year-old Fatehveer Singh fell into a 120 feet deep borewell while playing in Bhagwanpura village in June 2019 and could not be saved despite a 109-hour rescue operation. The borewell was once used by Fatehveer’s family to irrigate the fields. The NDRF launched a massive rescue operation to bring the child out safely. The officials managed to supply oxygen but no food or water could be provided to them.
7. Event in Pune, Maharashtra in February 2021
   In February 2021, a six-year-old boy fell into a 200-feet-deep borewell in Pune district.
8. Ritesh Jawasingh Solanki, Maharashtra, November 2021
   Ritesh Jawasingh Solanki, a six-year-old boy, had fallen into a 200-feet deep borewell in Nashik district on November 15 last year. It took the police team 16 hours to retrieve him.
9. Events in Gujarat and Punjab, May and June 2022
   On June 9, a two-year-old boy fell into a borewell in a field in Gujarat’s Surendranagar district, following which a team of Army, fire brigade, police and health officials rushed to the spot and rescued him. On May 22, a six-year-old boy who fell into a 100 feet deep borewell in a village in Punjab’s Hoshiarpur district died in a nine-hour rescue operation.

In 2009, the Supreme Court had issued guidelines to prevent fatal accidents of children falling in abandoned borewells. The revised guidelines issued by the court in 2010 included fencing of barbed wire around the well during construction, using steel plate covers fixed with bolts over the well and filling the borewell from below to ground level.

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