NEW DELHI, Apr 10: In trying to save a cat, five persons died after drowning in an abandoned well which was used as a biogas pit in Wakdi village in Nevasa tehsil of Ahmednagar district in Maharashtra, officials said on Wednesday.
The incident took place on Tuesday evening when a cat had fallen into the pit and one person climbed down to rescue it but ended up getting stuck in the sludge inside.
Then to rescue him, five others climbed down one after the other and they also got stuck, Nevasa police station’s inspector Dhananjay Jadhav said. While five persons died, one was rescued and admitted to a hospital for treatment, he added.
“A rescue team recovered the dead bodies of five of the six people who jumped one after another into an abandoned well-having animal waste stored while trying to rescue a cat,” Jadhav said.
The individual who survived had entered the well with a rope tied to his waist, the official said, adding that a probe was underway.
(Manas Dasgupta)
