Man Stuck In 40-Ft-Deep Borewell In Keshopur Mandi Found Dead After Nearly 6 Hours Of Rescue Op

A person who fell into a 40-foot-deep borewell inside a Delhi Jal Board plant near Keshopur Mandi was declared dead after rescuers brought his body out on Sunday.

Teams from the Delhi Fire Services, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and Delhi Police had rushed to the spot earlier in the day after receiving information about the incident. NDRF’s inspector-in-charge Veer Pratap Singh was also present at the spot.

After nearly six hours of rescue operation, the officials brought out the man’s body. His mortal remains have been sent to the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital.

Delhi Minister Atishi took to microblogging site X and said, “It is with great sadness that I share the news that the man who fell into the borewell have been found dead by the rescue team. May God give him a place at his feet.”

She noted that as per first information, the deceased is estimated to be around 30-years-old. “How they entered the borewell room, how they fell inside the borewell – this will be investigated by the police,” she added. “I thank the NDRF team, who made every possible effort in the rescue operation for many hours,” Atishi wrote.

Earlier, Vikaspuri police station said that it had received a Police Control Room (PCR) call about the incident inside Keshopur Jal Board office on Saturday night.

It said that Fire Brigade and NDRF teams were called to the spot and efforts were being made to take the person out. However, the identification of the person was yet to be ascertained, police officials added.

Meanwhile, the NDRF — which led the op from the front — brought a poclain machine to dig a new borewell parallel to the one in which the person was said to have fallen.

Delhi BJP President Virendra Sachdeva and West Delhi Candidate Kamaljeet Sehrawat had expressed concern over the incident and sent a team of party workers from the West Delhi cadre to review the situation.

Amid the rescue operation, Ravinder Singh, Station Officer, Rani Jhansi Road, had told reporters that “…The person could not have fallen into the borewell on his own…”

Delhi Minister and Aam Aadmi Party leader Atishi had also visited the incident site to take stock of the rescue operation.

After his visit to the site, Atishi took to X and informed that the borewell was in a locked room, adding that “prima facie it seems that an attempt was made to enter by forcefully breaking the lock. Police will investigate it.”

“To ensure that such cases do not come up again, strict orders have been given to the Jal Board that all private and government bore wells lying closed in Delhi should be sealed by welding within 48 hours and a report should be submitted to me,” she added.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal also addressed the situation at hand. Other than reinforcing the information put out by AAP leader Atishi, he also noted that, “And within 48 hours all abandoned government and private borewells will be sealed on war footing.”

However, it was noted that the person who fell inside was not a child — as assumed before — but someone who is at least 18-years-old, if not more. This is in consideration that the lock was forcefully broken.

Sources said that there is a possibility of “foul play” since an adult cannot that easily fall inside a borewell with a 12-inch diameter. It might be so that the victim was pushed in.