Two people, including an 8-year-old girl, died and several were injured after electric shocks from a loose wire at a stall near a Ganesh pandal in Mumbai’s Lalbaug-Kalachowki area at around 2 am on Sunday, and police have registered an FIR alleging negligence by the stall’s operator.
Large festivals depend on temporary infrastructure: lighting, sound systems and refrigeration for stalls are all connected through cables that were laid for a few days and will be removed after. That temporariness is what makes them risky.
Permanent installations are inspected, earthed and protected by circuit breakers. Temporary ones are often assembled quickly, in crowded and sometimes wet conditions, and a single exposed joint can put current into a metal stall or the ground around it.
The legal question police are investigating is who was responsible for the fitting. The public-safety question is broader: whether pandals and adjoining stalls have a routine check by a qualified person before crowds arrive, and whether earth-leakage protection is standard.
For visitors, the practical rule is simple. Keep away from loose or hanging wires, do not touch metal structures near cables in wet weather, and report exposed wiring to organisers or police immediately.
Section 106(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita deals with causing death by negligence, and Section 125 deals with acts that endanger life or the personal safety of others.
An investigation has begun into how the loose wire came to be exposed and who was responsible for the electrical fitting.
The Lalbaug area draws large crowds during the Ganesh festival, and pandals and nearby stalls use temporary electrical connections.
Officials and civic bodies usually issue safety advisories about temporary wiring, earthing and open cables before festival crowds gather.
Devotees are advised not to touch loose or hanging wires, especially in wet conditions, and to report exposed cables to local authorities.
Ganesh festival decoration (representative image), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0