Killer Borewells: From Prince in 2006 to Rahul in 2022, a Look at Cases of Kids Falling into Deadly Holes

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

Here are some other prominent borewell mishaps over the last few years:

1. Prince Kumar Kashyap, Haryana, 2006Arguably the most talked about case in recent years, in 2006, a massive operation was launched to rescue five-year-old Prince Kumar Kashyap. He had fallen into a 55-feet deep borewell in a village in Haryana’s Kurukshetra. Prince was pulled out safely nearly 48 hours later as the entire country watched with bated breath, hooked on to their TV screens. Over the next few weeks, Prince garnered celebrity status and often made appearances at yagnas and events around villages in Kurukshetra district.
2. Mahi, June 2012Five-year-old Mahi fell to her death in a 60-foot abandoned borewell while playing with her friends. The girl could not be saved, despite a massive effort by army and district administration for five days. A huge rock was a major hurdle that the rescuers had been struggling to break for three days. The slab was located in the horizontal tunnel between the borewell and the pit dug up to rescue the child.
3. Sai Barhate, Maharashtra, May 2017The seven-year-old boy fell into a borewell in Kopargaon tehsil of Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar district. He could not be saved.
4. Nadeem, Haryana, March 2019A one-and-half-year old boy, Nadeem, fell into a ten-inch wide and 55-feet deep borewell in Balsamand village of Hisar district in March 2019. The NDRF and the army were pressed into service and the toddler was finally rescued after a 48-hour long operation. Almost 40 JCB machines were pressed into service for digging a parallel pit and about 100 men from the Army and the NDRF participated in the operation apart from 150 policemen.
5. Seema, Rajasthan, May 2019Seema, a four-year-old girl, slipped into a 440-feet deep borewell in Jodhpur’s Melana village. Seema was stuck at a depth of 260-feet inside the borewell and her body was pulled out after a 14-hour operation. The tubewell at the farm had broken down and the girl’s father had taken the pump out for repairing, leaving the borewell open.
6. Fatehveer Singh, Punjab, June 2019Two-year-old Fatehveer Singh fell into a 120-feet deep borewell in June 2019 while playing at Bhagwanpura village and despite rescue operations spanning 109 hours, he could not be saved. The borewell was once used by Fateehveer’s family to irrigate the fields. A massive rescue operation was launched by NDRF to bring the child out safely. Officials managed to supply oxygen but no food or water could be provided to him.
7. Incident at Pune, Maharashtra in February 2021A six-year-old boy fell into a 200-feet deep borewell in Pune district in February 2021.
8. Ritesh Jawasingh Solanki, Maharashtra, November 2021Six-year-old boy Ritesh Jawasingh Solanki fell into a 200-feet deep borewell in Nashik district on November 15 last year. It took 16 hours for the police team to rescue him.
9. Incidents in Gujarat and Punjab, May & June 2022On June 9, a two-year-old boy fell into a borewell at a farm in Gujarat’s Surendranagar district, following which a team of the 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 after a nine-hour-long rescue operation.

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

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