Electrocution death leads to protest on Bathinda-Chandigarh road

BHAI BAKHTAUR (BATHINDA): The death of a 26-year-old youth due to electrocution in Bhai Bakhtaur village of Bathinda on Sunday evening led to strong protests by residents against Powercom officials. Keeping the body on the road, residents blocked traffic on Bathinda-Mansa-Chandigarh road for over two hours in the evening, demanding legal action against Powercom employees of the area for negligence.
Gursewak Singh died at around 7 pm while trying to cut off power supply from an electric transformer to clear a fault. The transformer was situated near the house of the deceased and following some fault in the power supply, as no Powercom employee reached the village to remove the fault, Gursewak Singh himself attempted to clear the same. Before removing the fault in the transformer, he had switched off the power supply.
According to the eyewitnesses, the deceased, a labourer by profession, while on way back home from work spotted some sparks in the transfer. With a view to avert a major fire, he tried to remove the fault, when a strong electric shock killed him on the spot.
The villagers alleged negligence by Powercom employees who have not installed automatic shutdown technology in the transformer. "The main supply wire to the transformer was touching the poles and main plug and high voltage current was flowing in it, causing the death of Gursewak," Mela Singh, father of the deceased, alleged.
While Powercom authorities said Gursewak was not supposed to clear the fault and his act was illegal, villagers said that most of the times, they have to clear the fault themselves as complaints at the complaint centre of Powercom rarely got any response. "Not only in Bhai Bhakhtaur, but in most villages, residents themselves rectifying electric faults is a common practice", said Maam Kaur, village sarpanch.
"The protest by villagers on the road is to seek action against employees of the Powercom, responsible for their negligence in duties. Look at the continuing negligent attitude of Powercom officials who have failed to repair the transformer, where Gursewak had died," said the sarpanch during the blockade.
"Actually it's the fault of Powercom workers who compel us to put our lives in danger by making us repair the electricity supply of our own. We don't want any further loss to villagers and want stern action against Powercom employees responsible for the tragedy," said the sarpanch.
While filing this report, two executive engineers of Powercom had reached the spot to pacify the villagers by assuring action against concerned Powercom employees.