A four-and-half-year-old child died on Wednesday at a Calcutta hospital after battling with her life since last Friday when she tripped and fell into a vat of boiling water put out by a sweet shop owner in East Midnapore’s Mechheda.
The incident sparked outrage among residents, who termed the way the vat was placed an act of “callousness” and “irresponsibility” by the shop owner.
The child Ankita Goswami, a resident of Kolaghat’s Vidyasagarpalli, had been playing with a friend near the main gate to Mechheda Children's Park.
“The sweet shop owner Kartik Das had put out the vessel in order to ready it for the afternoon's cooking, but how could they neglect the fact that the shop is located right by a children’s park. In any case, it is a dangerous thing to do,’ said a family member of the deceased on Thursday.
News of the child’s death sparked outrage late on Wednesday in the area, with local residents vandalising the shop and calling for the owner to be brought to justice.
“The shopkeeper does not even have proper papers but is running an ad hoc operation. A child had to pay the price for this,” said neighbour and protester Farooq Sheikh.
Eyewitnesses rushed Ankita last Friday afternoon to the Tamluk District Hospital, from where she was referred to Calcutta. “The mother did not even hear of the incident till that evening. Now she is delirious in grief,” Farooq told reporters in Kolaghat on Thursday after Ankita’sdeath.
Ankita’s father Arnab Goswami claimed Das fled and did not help the child. “She came out of that vat on her own strength minutes later and had to cry out for help.”
Das said on Thursday they had been alerted to Ankita's screams and had extended help. Ali Abubakr, subdivisional police officer at Tamluk, said a case of unnatural death has been filed.
A nursing home in East Midnapore’s Ramnagar was vandalised on Thursday with protestors alleging “staff negligence” that caused a maternity death on Wednesday night.
Police mitigated damage. The deceased, Kabita Manna Jana, 32, from Patna village, went into labour on Tuesday and was admitted to the hospital, where she reportedly delivered via Caesarean section the same night. On Wednesday, her condition reportedly deteriorated, following which she died while being transferred to a hospital in Calcutta.