Daijiworld Media Network - Madikeri (SP)

Madikeri, Jul 30: As water was released from Harangi reservoir near Kushalnagar into the canals all of a sudden on Thursday July 28, a boy who was sitting on the edge of Mavinahalla left bank canal within Kudige gram panchayat limits was washed away.

Shashank (5), son of Kaiballira Bharat and Dharani, lost his life in this unfortunate incident. He was a Balwadi student at Kudige and had come to the house of his grandmother, Susheela, on account of holiday. Susheela had taken her grandson with her when washing clothes in the left bank canal. She got him seated on the steps and was washing clothes, when Shashank suddenly got carried away by water which suddenly rose menacingly in the canal unexpectedly, Susheela explained.

After the grandmother alerted locals, they called officials of the reservoir and stopped the release of water, but by then the boy had been dragged away by water for about 300 metres. By the time he was brought out of water, he was no more. The body was shifted to the mortuary at Kushalnagar government hospital on Thursday night. The parents of the boy have filed a complaint at Kushalnagar rural station against the officials of Harangi reservoir.

Station house officer of the police station, J E Mahesh, summoned engineers of the irrigation department to the station on Friday and held a meeting with the engineers, parents of the boy and local leaders. The officials however stood their ground, claiming that they had done nothing wrong.

Deputy superintendent of police, T Kumar, pacified the angry parents and the locals. He asked them to allow a postmortem to be held so that a case can be registered against the officials and compensation can be disbursed.