A chief minister taking regretful notice of the death of a rickshaw-puller would disarm many. Sudhangshusekhar Das died of contact with a live electric cable under water. But such is the cynicism of the Calcuttan that even this regret cannot be taken at face value. It is possible to make quite a long list of people who have died by electrocution in ones or twos during every major water-logging episode in Calcutta’s recent history. One person died as recently as early July this year and his body was left in the water for hours. Chief ministers usually do not notice; these are the many ways in which some unfortunate people are bound to die when the city’s unreformed systems of drainage, dangerous old buildings with tottering walls and cracked balconies, casually unprotected electricity carriers, open manholes, all become death traps after any heavy bout of rain. They are never matter for comment. But this time, perhaps the presence of an articulate passenger travelling on Das’s rickshaw to sit her exam, who barely escaped with her own life and talked lucidly about the horror of her experience and the sadness of Das’s death, impelled Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to put on the most humane face he could command.

What difference will it make? Gentlemen of the state power department have expressed puzzlement that the mouths of open cables were not sealed with the cable kit according to rules but were just patched with black tape. This is hypocrisy of a mind-boggling order: open cables being worked upon are seldom sealed — the killer cable has not been sealed yet. The department will consider compensating Das’s family if it is “proved” that the cables were left unsealed. The meanness and contempt behind such statements emphasize the inhumanity of a culture unused to accountability, and provide a perfectly adequate explanation for all those earlier deaths by electrocution. A report a chief minister has asked for is no solution.