The Meghalaya Human Rights Commission (MHRC) has taken suo moto cognizance into the death of a 13-year-old girl from Madanrting by electrocution.
Highland Post had reported on the incident on November 3 on how a teenager lost her life after being electrocuted while washing clothes in a local stream on October 25, a day that had been declared a school holiday on account of bad weather that was forecast.
“This tragedy has once again put the state’s power corporation in the dock for their poor services when it comes to safeguarding people’s lives and appears to have resulted in gross human rights violation of the victim,” the commission said.
Madanrting currently faces acute water shortages and families often have to resort to paying for private water tankers to supply them. This explains why residents still have to wash their clothes in rivers.
The victim’s aunt, Evanghlyne Syiem, said that the location is close to a transformer and that several people who were also washing clothes in the water at the time felt a current and raised the alarm. The girl, however, could not escape the current and she was rescued by a man who bravely pulled her out of the stream.
The teenager who was rushed to Supercare Hospital died two days later, with the parents left to bear a Rs 70,000 hospital bill plus the additional cost of medicines.
