NEW DELHI – Haryana government on Sunday ordered a magisterial probe into the death of four-year-old girl Mahi after falling into an abandoned borewell. “A magisterial inquiry has been ordered in the case,” Gurgaon District Magistrate P C Meena said. He said a case has also been registered against Rohatash Tayal, the landowner who had dug up the borewell. Tayal has been absconding and the state police have sent out two teams to trace him.
Meanwhile, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda condoled the death of Mahi and said her family would be adequately compensated.
About 90 hours of anxiety and hope turned to despair and disgust on Sunday as rescuers who had furiously dug a parallel tunnel to save a girl who fell into a narrow and deep borewell in Manesar found her dead, the body beginning to decompose.
The grieving parents of Mahi, who slipped into the dingy 70-feet deep tubewell close to midnight on Wednesday, were inconsolable. They accused the administration of delaying the rescue efforts.
“Who will give us back our daughter now?” asked her father Neeraj Upadhhyaya, soon after the ESI Hospital in Manesar town handed over to the family the body of the girl whose tragedy occurred on her birthday.
A senior army officer admitted that the rescue operation was slowed down by the rocky terrain. “We could not dig as fast as we wanted,” Brigadier SP Singh told reporters.
“There were too many rocks. We couldn’t blast them for fear of hurting our own men or the girl. This slowed down our work.”
