Assam: Six electrocuted inside fishing pond

GUWAHATI: Six persons, including a 10-year-old boy, were electrocuted to death in Nagaon district on Friday morning when they were fishing in a pond unaware of an overhead 11000 volt feeder line that had snapped and fallen into the pond suddenly got charged.
Eight people have been injured in the tragedy that struck Uttar Khatowal village, under Rupohi revenue circle, at around 7.50am.
Villagers noticed the snapped high-voltage transmission line fallen into over the pond at around 5 am and informed the control room of Rupohi sub-station.
“The villagers claim that the control room had told them that the wire was not a live and it needed to be put back again before charging it and so they went into the pond for fishing at around 7am,” police said.
But, about 50 minutes later, when the villagers were still inside the pond, the snapped transmission line became charged, which instantly electrocuted all the people in contact with the pond water. Such was the power of the charge that there was smoke coming from the bodies.
A spokesman of the Assam Power Distribution Corporation Limited said that an ‘earth fault’ was reported at the 11kv Singimari feeder from Rupohi sub-station at 5am. “The line as not charged at that time but at around 7.50am, lineman Md Fakrul Ahmed gave the clearance for charging the line and accordingly the line was charged. Probably he did not notice the fallen line,” a spokesman of the state-owned power company said.
The dead were identified as Rafiqul Islam, Jabar Ali, Habibur Rahman, Mainul Islam, Inamul Islam and Ashiful Islam (10). The injured were taken to Nagaon Civil Hospital and the condition of some are stated to be critical.
Angry locals armed with sticks attacked the Ahmed’s house and damaged furniture and his vehicle. They asserted that negligence by APDCL had led to the mishap and demanded compensation of Rs 10 lakh to the next of kin of each of the dead and a government job to one of their family members. APDCL has so far announced an ex-gratia of Rs 2.5 lakh to each.
The government quickly shunted out managing director of APDCL Puru Gupta to industry and commerce department as commissioner and secretary and suspended Samaguri electricity sub-divisional officer Pallab Das and three other APDCL employees, including line man Ahmed.
Former chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta visited the bereaved families and demanded that they be given adequate compensation, besides an inquiry into the incident. PTI COR ESB KK ZMN
Chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal has asked additional chief secretary and APDCL chairman Jishnu Barua to start an enquiry into the incident to find circumstances leading to the electrocution and submit the report to the government immediately.