13JUNE2019 STATE OBSERVER
The PIL blamed administration for the death of Fatehveer, who fell into an open borewell in Sangrurand and demanded fixing of responsibility of erring officers.
The Punjab and Haryana high court will take up a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking directions to formulate policy and procedure for digging bore wells, so that any untoward incident like Fatehveer’s death does not happen again.The request for consideration of the PIL was made by a Mohali resident Parminder Singh Sekhon on Wednesday, following which the court agreed to hear the matter on Monday.The 2-year-old, Fatehveer, who fell into an open borewell in Sangrur, was taken out dead after five days on Tuesday morning.The petitioner said the incident shows inadequate preparedness of the authorities. “It also shows lack of respect towards life of the child, as a better measure would have saved the life of the child,” the petition said. It has been demanded that a report be sought from the state as to how the rescue operation got delayed by almost 12 hours.The PIL blamed administration for the death of the child and demanded fixing of responsibility of erring officers.The petition also demanded compensation to the victim’s family underlining that crucial time was wasted by officials in the absence of any standard operating procedure.The petitioner has sought to make CM Captain Amarinder Singh, National Disaster Management Authority, National Disaster Response Force, Punjab government, irrigation and water resource department and Sangrur district administration as parties in the case.The PIL blamed political leadership too for the tragedy, arguing that they did not act for the first two days. Also for two days local administration did not know how to deal with the situation and NDRF was roped in only after hue and cry by the relatives and locals, it read.
