4yearold Ambala Boy Dies After 21 Hour Borewell Ordeal

A four-year-old boy who fell into a 220-foot-deep open borewell in Haryana’s Ambala district on Tuesday morning died early on Wednesday, shortly after rescuers pulled him out following a 21-hour multi-agency operation, police said.

The child, Nirvair Singh, was brought to the surface at around 3.45am and immediately rushed by ambulance to the sub-divisional civil hospital in Ambala Cantonment, where doctors declared him dead.

A joint team from the army, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) finally managed to retrieve him using specialised hooks and equipment after multiple attempts. The rescue teams had been planning to dig a parallel shaft on Wednesday if conventional retrieval methods continued to fail, but they were restricted by the presence of two high water tables that threatened to instantly flood any newly excavated pits.

The incident occurred around 6.30am on Tuesday at Dhaneora village. Nirvair had accompanied his father, Manjit Singh, to the family’s fields to deliver breakfast to his grandfather, Karnail Singh, who was already working there. While the adults were occupied with their chores, the child accidentally stepped into the open, abandoned borewell with a 9-inch diameter.

After their own initial, unsuccessful attempts to pull him out, the family alerted local authorities at 7am, prompting an extensive rescue operation supervised by Ambala deputy commissioner Ajay Singh Tomar.

Bhavey Nagpal is a staff correspondent based at Karnal. He reports on crime, politics, health, railways, highways, and civic affairs for northern Haryana districts.