india

Updated: Jun 11, 2019 02:50 IST

Rohi Singh had made big plans to celebrate the second birthday of his grandson Fatehveer Singh. Little did he realise that he along with his family would spend the entire day longing for a glimpse of the toddler.

The boy remains stuck in a 150-foot-deep borewell in Sunam subdivision of Sangrur district on Monday, amid mounting anger over the delay in retrieving him even after over 100 hours since he fell into it.

“Fatehveer is the only child of his parents. He is very active and we had celebrated the boy’s arrival in our family with a special celebration,” said Rohi. The entire family and their neighbours are praying for the safety of the child.

“What happened has happened. We will celebrate his next birthday with a grand event,” said Rohi’s brother Gurmail Singh. “All the people have contributed immensely in the operation to rescue our child,” he added. Fatehveer’s parents Gagandeep Kaur and Sukhwinder Singh have refused to talk to the media.

One of the rescuers said the depth of the parallel borewell, dug up to rescue the child, was more than the level at which he was stuck and it led to unwanted delay. An ultra-sophisticated, high-density drilling equipment had been pressed into service to detect the exact direction and distance through sensor, deputy commissioner Ghanshyam Thori said.

Even as frantic rescue operation was underway to pull out the toddler, a large number of people assembled around the site and several of them raised slogans against the state government for the delay.

Villagers held a protest and blocked the Sunam-Mansa road for sometime, as they blamed the district administration for not being able to bring out the child despite four days. Heavy police was deployed around the site to prevent any untoward incident.

Fatehveer, who is the only child of his parents, fell into the unused nine-inch wide borewell in a field around 4 pm on Thursday when he was playing near his house in Bhagwanpura village in Sangrur area. The toddler is stuck at a depth of 125 feet.