Mahi's funeral today, family demands justice

Five-year-old Mahi who tragically passed away after falling into a 80-foot deep borewell in Manesar will be laid to rest in Aligarh today, even as her family demands justice for the carelessness and callousness that led to her death. Neeraj, Mahi’s father, said that the borewell near his house was illegal and demanded that strict action be taken against those responsible for digging it. Another relative speaking to CNN-IBN said, “The whole family is hurt. If this continues then children will die on a daily basis. We want strict action to be taken against the culprit. Only then will these types of illegal activities come to a halt.  Apart from the presence of the borewell itself, Mahi’s father is also decrying what he describes as the callousness of the police who did not respond to his frantic calls for over 90 minutes. “My daughter had fallen into the borewell at 11:10 AM and I called police at 11:15 am  but the police did not respond in a positive manner. Had the police performed its duty in a much better and quicker way, my daughter would have been saved”, he said. Mahi who fell into the open well on Wednesday was trapped for around 86 hours as the army launched a massive rescue operation to try and dig her out. However, officials at the ESI Army hospital where Mahi was taken said that she had most likely died within around three hours of falling into the pit. The depth of the pit meant that there was very little oxygen available, and although a tube of oxygen was lowered in an effort to give the child air, it most likely was not enough to help her survive. The lack of oxygen made it difficult for even the army rescuers to work continuously, and they had to work in teams on ten minute shifts. Mahi also had no access to food or water through her ordeal. Till Saturday evening rescuers had made a little headway as they attempted to pierce a slab of hard rock located in the horizontal tunnel between the borewell and the pit dug up to rescue the child. The army operation which involved more than 100 soldiers who were working in ten minute shifts, had to dig a parallel tunnel to the borewell so that they could her get out.