Mumbai: Man dives into borewell, saves 8-year-old girl in Lokhandwala

A quickthinking driver dived into an open borewell immediately on seeing an eightyearold fall into it at a Lokhandwala complex and rescued her on Wednesday The entire rescue took place in a matter of 10 minutes While the borewell has now been covered residents of the Andheri society have slammed the committee members for dragging their feet on the issue and ignoring the safety hazard it posesCommittee members blame one another and say that it is partially the society membersrsquo fault as they never want to shell out money for repair or maintenance work unless and until ldquoit is an emergency issuerdquoThe 12foot deep borewell is located inside Lokhandwalarsquos Apna Ghar Society Unit number 5 in Andheri West Speaking to midday 28yearold Vipin Sooryavanshi the driver who rescued the child said the incident and rescue happened in a matter of 10 minutes He said ldquoIt was a little after 6 pm I had just parked the car next to the society office behind the building The watchman had climbed on top of the roof of the society office to get the kidsrsquo ball down but it ball fell on top of the thin rusted cover of the well The girl went to pick up the ball and fell into the wellrdquoSooryavanshi dived into the well at Lokhandwalarsquos Apna Ghar Society Unit number 5 as soon as he saw the child fall into itHe added ldquoI instantly took off my bag and jumped in without removing my shoes I had to then splash around with my legs to locate where she was under the water My leg touched her and then I supported myself against the walls of the well and with the help of a pipe inside the well managed to pull her outrdquo Sooryavanshi works for a resident of the buildingWhen midday visited the spot on Thursday the eightyearold girl was playing in the building with other children her age unaware of the tragedy she had been rescued from Some of the residents and the girlrsquos father narrated the incidentResidents vs committee membersA resident of the society Paras Bakshe pointed out to a white wooden stool kept next to the borewellmdashwhich was covered with a new metallic lidmdashand said ldquoThis stool is what was used earlier as a warning sign that the borewell was open This new lid was installed after the incident occurred on Wednesday evening The earlier lid had rusted The only light close to the well does not work making this a very dangerous spot after dark No one is usually behind the building so it was lucky that the driver happened to be thererdquoThe borewell was covered after the incident PicAnurag AhireThe 37yearold father of the girl said ldquoWe live here on rent How are we supposed to raise the issue But the permanent residents should take it up and raise objections with the management so that what happened to my daughter doesnrsquot happen to anyone elsersquos children in the futurerdquoldquoAnything that has to be done first needs to be passed through a vote by the committee members So why couldnrsquot they vote to get the well covered before this mishaprdquo asked ParasAshish Parashar secretary of Apna Ghar Society Unit number 5 said ldquoThe well was covered but the lid had rusted and fallen apart We needed a replacementrdquolsquoA lot of infightingrsquoDr Ashish Gandhi chairman of Apna Ghar Society Unit number 5 said the previous committee members ldquohad spent R11 lakh more than what the AGM had sanctioned on repairs maintenance etcrdquo after which a case was registered against them at the registrarrsquos office and they were removed ldquoIn 2016 I was elected chairman and Parashar was elected secretary There is a lot of infighting and disagreements Any decision that we take for spending be it repair or maintenance work most of the members say they donrsquot want to shell out money They donrsquot allow the committee to work and ask us to resign I am not saying that it is entirely their fault but whenever we take up any issues they donrsquot allow us to do anything unless and until it becomes an emergencyrdquo he addedWhen asked why couldnrsquot he have gotten the well covered Gandhi said his job simply entailed sanctioning the approval ldquoThis request to fix the well had been put in NovemberhellipI thought it must have been done by nowrdquo he said12 feetThe depth of the borewell