Four-year-old girl dies after falling into sewage tank at Nalagarh school

A four-year-old nursery student died on Friday after falling into a sewage tank at Bhagat Singh Memorial Public School in Dhabota, under the Nalagarh subdivision of Solan district. The body of the child, identified as Manjot Kaur, was found floating in the tank, one of whose two covers was missing.

According to a police complaint filed by Jarnail Singh, who lives near the school, a peon called him around 12:40 p.m. to inform him that the body of a small girl was floating in the sewage tank located near the toilets. Jarnail rushed to the school and identified the body as that of Manjot Kaur, a nursery student. The girl’s father, Jitendra Singh, and another local resident also reached the spot and helped remove the body from the tank. They estimated that the child might have fallen into the tank nearly two hours earlier.

The family accused the school administration of negligence, saying it had failed to ensure the safety of young children by not keeping the sewage tank properly covered.

Meanwhile, the incident went unnoticed by the school staff for most of the day. “Had the peon not spotted the body, it might have remained undiscovered,” a local resident said.

Additional Superintendent of Police (Baddi) Ashok Verma said, “A police team has taken possession of the body and sent it for post-mortem. A case has been registered under Sections 125 and 106 of the Indian Penal Code for endangering life or personal safety and causing death by negligence. The investigation is ongoing.”

Nalagarh SHO Rakesh Roy added, “The sewage tank was located in one corner of the playground and was left uncovered, exposing the school’s negligence, as small children could easily fall into it. The school administration informed the police about the accident, although we had already received reports from others.”