10-year-old succumbs to electrocution burns in Pune

A 10-year-old boy, Vaibhav Joshi, on Sunday night succumbed to burns due to electrocution.

On November 6, Vaibhav was playing with a football near his house at Kamgarnagar in Pimpri when the ball went inside an enclosure, where a transformer was set up.

He accidentlly came in contact with a live wire hanging from the transformer as he was coming out of the enclosure. He was admitted with 55% burns to the Surya Hospital.

Vaibhav is a student of standard V of the DY Patil High School. His father Girish is an employee of the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation.

Although the case has been reported to the Pimpri police station, no FIR has been filed so far. The inspector of Pimpri police station TS Gaud said, “If the victim’s parents wish, we will register a case.”

Dr Jaysingh Shinde of Surya Hospital said Vaibhav suffered critical burn injuries on his face, neck and stomach. “We had kept him in the intensive care unit (ICU), as his condition was serious,” he added.

Local activist and lawyer Sagar Charan alleged that the transformer’s fence was kept open by MSEDCL, due to which the boy could go inside the enclosure.

“We had been demanding that the enclosure be locked. But there has been no response,” he added.

MSEDCL junior engineer NV Ragivan shifted the blame to the builder for not constructing a concrete wall. “We can’t keep the enclosure locked, as we get calls from public to open it for one reason or the other frequently. The aggrieved family has not approached us for compensation,” he said.