Staff Reporter :
After an intense rescue operation lasting 32 hours, doctors have confirmed that two-year-old Sajid was already dead when he was finally pulled from an abandoned deep tube-well shaft in Rajshahi’s Tanore upazila on Thursday night.
Tanore Upazila Health Complex Medical Officer Dr Barnabas Hasdak said, “Following our examinations, we declared him dead at 9:40pm. He was brought here with no signs of life.”
Fire Service and Civil Defence Director (Operation and Maintenance) Lt Col Mohammad Tajul Islam Chowdhury said Sajid was retrieved from the shaft around 9:15pm after a relentless day-and-night effort by firefighters that began on Wednesday.
Rescuers had to dig as deep as 45 feet to locate the child before rushing him to the health complex, where doctors pronounced him dead.
The tragedy unfolded around 1pm on Wednesday (10 December), when Sajid slipped into the unused deep tube-well while accompanying his mother near a field next to their home. Locals tried to rescue him immediately but were unable to do so, prompting them to call the Fire Service.
A local firefighting team reached the scene within an hour and began ventilation work. Soon, additional units from Rajshahi and Chapainawabganj joined the mission. Early attempts using a charge-vision camera failed to detect the child within the first 35 feet of the shaft.
This led rescuers to begin an overnight excavation beside the tube-well to create a horizontal access tunnel, a process that continued through Thursday.
Throughout the ordeal, officials from the Fire Service, local administration, and medical teams supervised the operation, while hundreds of distressed residents gathered at the site, hoping and praying for little Sajid’s safe return.
