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Electrocution of minor girls on waterlogged Bengal road triggers political slugfest
The government and the South Dum Dum Municipality jointly announced a compensation of ₹2 lakh each for the families but they refused to accept it. The families also made critical remarks about the TMC-run civic body, accusing it of not taking precautionary measures in the wake of similar deaths in other parts of the state since Monday.
The death of two minor girls, who were electrocuted on Wednesday after touching the pole of a street light on a waterlogged road at South Dum Dum near Kolkata, has triggered a slugfest between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC).
TMC’s Dum Dum Lok Sabha member Saugata Roy and education minister Bratya Basu, the local legislator, had to visit the affected families on Thursday following an agitation by residents of the area. The BJP promptly took up the issue.
The government and the South Dum Dum Municipality jointly announced a compensation of ₹2 lakh each for the families but they refused to accept it. The families also made critical remarks about the TMC-run civic body, accusing it of not taking precautionary measures in the wake of similar deaths in other parts of the state since Monday. The municipality ordered an inquiry.
The girls, Shreya Banik, 12, and Anuskha Nandy, 13, were making their way through a waterlogged street when they touched the lamp post, the base of which was submerged in stagnant rain water. Both were declared dead on arrival at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, said the local police.
“No amount of money can make up for the loss the families have suffered. We are only following routine. What happened is heart-breaking but people should not be doing politics over this. Action will be taken if negligence on the part of anyone is established,” Roy said.
Leader of the opposition in the state assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, held the government and CESC Ltd, the sole electricity provider for Kolkata and the adjoining districts, responsible for the deaths.
Demanding a compensation of ₹50 lakh each for the families, he said, “The government should apologize in public in 24 hours.”
“We provide only the power. Junction boxes for street lights are maintained by the civic body,” an executive of CESC Ltd said on condition of anonymity.
Amid record rainfall since Monday, at least 10 people in Bengal have died of electrocution either in their homes or in the streets in several districts. In north 24 Parganas district, where the two girls died, three members of a family were electrocuted inside their home on Monday while a man died in the Khardah area on Wednesday.
Surajit Roychaudhury, a coordinator of the South Dum Dum Municipality faced the ire of the families of the two girls.
“When it was raining heavily, we switched off the street lights fearing an accident but local people started complaining. We had to restore the connection,” he said.
Although rainfall declined in Dum Dum on Wednesday morning many streets remain inundated because the Bagjola canal, the main outlet, is still overflowing, Roychaudhury added.
