A two-year-old boy, who had fallen into an unused borewell in a field at Bhagwanpura village in Punjab's Sangrur district five days ago, was rescued at 5:12 am on Tuesday only to be declared dead later.

Stuck in an over 120-foot-deep borewell for 109 hours, a two-year-old toddler was declared dead after being rescued Tuesday morning in Sangrur district. With his hands clamped with a rope, Fatehveer Singh was brought out after the operation to rescue him through a parallel tunnel dug up closeby failed. A team of doctors was stationed at the incident site to provide medical assistance to Singh as soon as he was pulled out. An ambulance equipped with a ventilator was also stationed there. The kid was rushed to Chandigarh but he was declared brought dead by the doctors.

Fatehveer Singh was rescued by the NDRF and local volunteers. He was rushed to PGIMER in Chandigarh in an ambulance amid police security. PGIMER official Dr Uttam Thakur said postmortem of the body was carried out and then the body handed over to the family. The state had a chopper on standby near the site, but the child was taken to a hospital about 140 kms from the village by road as the chopper couldn't fly before 5:40 am, said Deputy Commissioner Sangrur Ghanshyam Thori.

As per the information given by PGI Chandigarh, Fatehveer Singh was brought to the pediatric emergency ward, at 7.24 AM with an alleged history of fall into a borewell. On admission, he had no pulse, no respiration and no cardiac activity, hence the child was declared brought dead. The police moved a request for the postmortem and submitted inquest papers in the Department of Forensic Medicine, PGI. A panel of doctors conducted the autopsy and the examination was concluded at 11.15 AM. Postmortem findings are suggestive of death occurring a few days back. The detailed postmortem report is being prepared. The mortal remains of the child were handed over to police.

The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) team, which conducted the rescue op, had initially thought of using a rope to pull Fatehveer out but went against it suspecting injuries to the child. However, on June 6, a rope was suspended in the borewell which had even gripped the hands of the child, but he could not be pulled out. Deputy Commissioner Sangrur Ghanshyam Thori said, "This method was followed on day one, but the team could not succeed and it was tried almost every day, but as the child couldn't be retrieved via clamping, they were following another method of creating a parallel borewell and reaching the borewell via a tunnel."

—Zee Media Newsroom