Sujith Wilson: Indian boy found dead in well after failed effort to rescue him grips nation

A two-year-old boy who fell into a deep well in India has died and his body retrieved by rescue workers, officials said on Tuesday.

Sujith Wilson was out playing with friends near his home in rural Tamil Nadu state when he slipped feet-first into the narrow, 180m-deep abandoned borehole on Friday afternoon.

Heavy drilling equipment was brought in to aid the rescue effort and on Sunday a camera lowered into the well confirmed that Sujith was still alive and stuck at a depth of around 10m.

But he later slipped further to around 30m, and at 3am on Tuesday his body was pulled out of the borehole using what officials called “special equipment”.

Tamil Nadu official J Radhakrishnan told reporters the decision was made to extract Sujith’s body after a smell starting emanating from the well. “We found his body to be highly decomposed,” he said.

The boy’s body was taken to a Tiruchirappalli district hospital by members of the national disaster response agency, and after a brief autopsy it was handed to his parents.

Sujith was buried at a cemetery in Puthur at around 8am, with officials and a state government minister in attendance to pay their respects.

The borehole was then filled with cement and sealed, according to the ANI news agency, to prevent the incident ever recurring.

The case is the second in four months involving a toddler dying after falling into an abandoned well. In June, a two-day rescue operation failed to save a small boy in Punjab.

Both stories have been closely followed by the public, many who still remember the dramatic 2006 case of a six-year-old boy pulled alive from a 20m well after being trapped for 48 hours.

Prime minister Narendra Modi and the main opposition congress leader Rahul Gandhi tweeted messages of support for Sujith, and on Tuesday Mr Gandhi offered his “condolences to his grieving parents and his family”.

The death has sharpened criticism of the authorities for failing to act on the issue of dangerous uncovered boreholes, which are used by farmers and households to access deep groundwater and then abandoned once they dry up.

Tamil Nadu’s chief minister, Edappadi K Palanisamy, said guidelines were in place regarding the correct installation and decommissioning of such wells, and threatened “strict action” against anyone who failed to follow them.

He said he had ordered officials to “work day and night to rescue the child” and blamed the rocky make-up of the ground around the borehole for the failure of attempts to dig down and reach the boy. Local media reported that specialised oil drilling equipment burrowed to within around 10m of the boy before breaking down.

“Despite, the hurdles, with the help of the experts, we tried to save Sujith. I was heartbroken after I came to know that Sujith passed away,” Mr Palanisamy said.