An eight-year-old boy was electrocuted at a Saraswati Puja pandal in Kapasdanga area of Hooghly’s Chinsurah town on Thursday night.

Sources said a club in Chinsurah’s Kapsdanga had organised a feast as part of Saraswati Puja.

Nilesh Rajbanshi, 8, a Class III student at a local primary school, had come for the dinner with his parents.

“We were all busy having dinner while Nilesh went inside the pandal. He accidentally touched a bare copper wire hanging at a corner of the pandal and got electrocuted. A local youth who tried to save him also got injured. Later, the power connection to the pandal was disconnected and the boy was rescued unconscious,” a resident and eyewitness said.

Police said the boy was declared brought dead when he was taken to Imambara hospital around 11pm.

Indrajit Dutta, a local Trinamul councillor, said: “It was an accident. No one is responsible as the open wire was hanging at the extreme corner and the boy went there and got electrocuted.”