Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami has condoled the tragic death of Sujith Wilson, the two-year-old who fell into a borewell on Friday and was retrieved dead in Trichy district on Tuesday.
The Chief Minister has expressed his condolences to the parents and family of the child. Sujith was playing at his home in Nadukattupatti village when he accidentally fell into an abandoned borewell on Friday evening. While fire and rescue personnel rushed to the spot, the SDRF and NDRF were also called in to dig a parallel hole to reach the boy.
With rescue efforts desperately trying to reach the boy over four days, Principal Secretary, Revenue, J Radhakrishnan finally declared in the wee hours of Tuesday that the child’s body had started to decompose and then later was retrieved dead.
Stating that he had ordered the ministers and bureaucrats to expend every effort to rescue the child alive, the Chief Minister said, “Minister and officials undertook rescue work day and night based on my orders. With the help of advanced technology, a new, bigger borewell was dug next to the borewell where the child was stuck. On account of hard rocks, the rescue efforts faced several difficulties. Expert teams worked day and night to address these difficulties in order to rescue the child alive. Despite this, the news of the child’s body being retrieved gives me great heartache.”
He added that guidelines to be followed when digging a borewell have been established, and that citizens must ensure that the borewells at their fields are covered or closed. “I have ordered all district collectors to check if these rules and regulations are being followed. If there are any lapses in this regard, I have also instructed government officials to take stern action. In order to avoid such regrettable incidents in the future, I ask that the public follow due safety procedures when closing the borewells in their fields,” he said, thanking those involved in the rescue efforts.
The Chief Minister is expected to travel to Trichy to meet the grieving family on Tuesday afternoon.