Congress leader Rahul Gandhi condoles death of toddler Sujith

Gandhi tweeted: "I’m sorry to hear about the passing of baby Sujith. My condolences to his grieving parents and his family."

India woke up to sad news on Tuesday morning when the efforts to save the two-year-old boy trapped in a borewell at Nadukattupatti village in Tiruchirapalli district of Tamil Nadu came to a tragic end when the rescue team pulled out the body of Sujith Wilson.

His death ended the 82-hour-long rescue operation toa tragic end.

Commissioner of Revenue Administration informed the media at 0230 hours early this morning that ‘the boy was dead.’

The rescue teams observed foul smell emanating from the borewell in which the boy was trapped at around 1030 hours on Monday night, following which medical teams assessed the situation and announced that the boy was dead.

The tunnel digging process was stopped immediately.

The child’s body was dismembered and in a highly decomposed state, he said.

Subsequently, the personnel of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and Tamil Nadu Fire Rescue Services Department extricated the toddler’s body wedged at a depth of about 88-feet at 0430 hours, this morning and sent to the government hospital at Manapparai for post-mortem.

Tamil Nadu Ministers C Vijayabaskar, Vellamandi N Natarajan and R Valarmathi paid their homage to the body at government hospital.

The body was handed over to his family after the post-mortem and taken to Nadukattupatti village.

Sujith Wilson’s fate had captivated the entire country since Friday evening, when he accidentally fell at around 0540 hours into the 600-feet deep unused borewell, belonging to his family and located in a corn field adjacent to the house.

Initially the boy was stuck at a depth of 26 feet in the borewell. He slipped further to 70 feet even as the fire services department attempted to dig a parallel pit to retrieve him.

The preliminary efforts to drill into the earth were hampered by difficult terrain and bad weather.

Multiple technical teams from various parts of the State made numerous efforts to pull out the boy, but could not succeed as the boy further slipped into the borewell to a depth of around 100 feet.

Later, special teams from the National Disaster Response Force and State Disaster Response Force, assisted by police, civil authorities, volunteers and locals also made efforts to pull out the boy that went vain.