Live electric cable falls, kills boy in Dharwad district

The live wire prevented them from going close to the boy, and though some brave villagers tried to move the cable away from him with a wooden stick, the effort didn't yield results. Prasanna died in minutes as the villagers watched helplessly. "We couldn't do much to save him as the cable was live," a villager said. The villagers' grief turned into anger and hundreds of them stormed Hescom's grid in Nigadi, ransacked the building and damaged the equipment. Fearing a backlash, employees ran for safety, police said. Neighbouring villages expressed their support by blocking the Dharwad-Haliyal road for two hours. Prasanna, set to join class IV in the village's Government Primary School, was the eldest son of a farmer couple, Shankarayya and Girijavva. When the boy shouted for help, villagers thought he may have had a fall while playing, and didn't pay much attention. They realized the enormity of the accident when they saw him in the grip of an electric cable. They called Hescom to shut off power supply but by the time the authorities acted, it was too late. They say it isn't the first time villagers had come in contact with the wire, and were plain lucky there was no power supply on earlier occasions. But this time, it proved fatal. "We had alerted Hescom officials about the dangling wire but no action was taken. They had reconnected the wire but it would keep falling," villagers said. They demanded action against the guilty officials, and compensation for Prasanna's family. Officials to be booked Dharwad Rural circle police inspector Motilal Lamani rushed to the village with a team from Alnavar police station and shifted the body to the district civil hospital for postmortem. He said police would book Hescom officials for negligence. Family in shock Prasanna's parents Shankarayya and Girijavva were inconsolable. Prasanna was their eldest son and they had pinned all their hopes on him. Being small farmers, the Yaragambalimaths were working hard to educate their two sons. Prasanna's younger brother, who was playing with his brother and other friends, was in a state of shock as well. Prasanna was cremated in the village after the postmortem, with people from Benakanakatti and surrounding villages bidding him a tearful farewell. Hescom mum Hescom officials were not available for any reaction, as those in charge at the grid in Nigadi, off Benakanakatti village, had left, anticipating angry protests from the villagers. Dinesh Gundurao, minister in charge of Dharwad district, is likely to visit the bereaved family on Friday and announce compensation, sources said. Gundurao will be in Hubballi and Dharwad on Friday to launch development works.

-TOI