03 February,2009 07:40 AM IST | | Vinod Kumar Menon
Neighbours who rushed to help the children did not realiseu00a07-month-old Shagun was lying motionless under the steel cabinet
A freak incident killed a seven-month-old girl and injured another child. Three children were playing in a flat at the Devi Krupa building in Ghatkopar (E) on Sunday evening when they inadvertently knocked a steel cupboard down, resulting in the death of seven-month-old Shagun and Vipul (6) injured.
Residents of the building were alerted by a huge thud in flat number 207. Neighbours rushed to the flat and rescued Vipul who was trapped under the cupboard. However, they did not notice Shagun who was trapped underneath as well. Minutes later, when she was found, she was motionless.
She was rushed to the hospital, but a doctor declared her dead before admission. An autopsy was conducted on Shagun at Rajawadi post mortem centre where forensics experts concluded that her death was due to a head injury (unnatural).
Neighbours say Vipul had pulled on the cupboard that caused the curtain to topple over. Vipul, who is admitted in a private nursing home, continues to be in a state of shock. "Vipul sustained an injury on his forehead. We await his CT scan report so we can rule out any internal injury to his brain," a doctor at the hospital told
MiD DAY.
Shagun was Vipul's cousin and the only child of her parents, Prakash and Kavita, who had come to Mumbai two months back in search of a livelihood. Vipul's mother Sapna said, "It is an unfortunate accident. We are surprised that a six-year-old could pull the loaded cupboard down. Vipul keeps mumbling that someone else knocked the cupboard down. But we don't know if we should believe this, as there is no eyewitness."
The Pantnagar police have registered a case of accidental death under section 174 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
