CHANDIGARH: Five men lost their lives during an attempt to clean an unused well in Jind district, Haryana. District officials said the victims suffocated after inhaling a poisonous gas emanating from the well. Jind Deputy Commissioner Vinay Singh said, “All departments were pressed into action to get the five persons out of the well. Bleaching powder was used to control the gas. The well had been lying unused for the last five to six years.”
All the men belong to the Dhanak caste of the SC community. Identified as Sanjay (23), Sukhchain (20), Mahipal (36), Mohan (18) and Dinesh (24), it is reported that Sukhchain was the first to enter the 20 feet deep well, and was followed by others one by one after he failed to return. Another resident of the village who had accompanied them entered the well with a t-shirt wrapped around his mouth. While the five victims were cremated in the evening, villagers blamed water scarcity in the region as the culprit for the deaths. “The well where the five dies was not in use since 1995. With water not being available at all, some people decided to clean it to get water for daily use. That proved fatal,” said Shamsher, brother-in-law of the sarpanch. He also claimed that repeated reminders to the district administration and political leaders to solve the water crisis in the village had yielded no results.
However, the Deputy Commissioner denied, saying, “No complaint has come to my notice. The villagers had also not asked for any water tanker. They were cleaning the well to get water for bathing and other purposes, and not for drinking. The supply this year has been less.”
