A man died and five other persons were injured after coming in contact with a live electric wire during a Ganesh idol immersion procession in Mumbai on Sunday morning, civic officials said.
The incident occurred on Khairani Road in Sakinaka area at around 10.45 am when a dangling electric wire accidentally touched the Ganpati idol, leading to six devotees near it getting electrocuted, the officials said as per the information received from local police.
Some locals rushed the injured persons to nearby private medical facilities and one of them was taken to the civic-run Seven Hills Hospital, an official said.
Doctors at the Seven Hills Hospital declared Binu Sukumaran Kumaran (36) "brought dead", the civic official said.
Five others -- Subhanshu Kamat (20), Tushar Gupta (20), Dharmaraj Gupta (49), Karan Kanojia (14) and Anush Gupta (6) -- were admitted to the Paramount Hospital and their condition was reported to be stable, the official said.
Every year lakhs of devotees take part in the idol immersion processions across Mumbai. From Chowpatty to Juhu, the city sees several devotees bid adieu to their Ganesh idols, immersing them in the Arabian Sea. Showered with flower petals and vermillion, the entire visarjan process is one of the biggest annual celebrations for the devotees.
The attendees are not just limited to Mumbai; they all arrive from Pune, Nagpur, and Hyderabad to attend the grand celebration to celebrate the arrival of the Lalbaugcha Raja.
However, Mumbai has witnessed several such mishaps over the years, with electrocution being a common factor across the years.
Drowning deaths have become common, too, over the past five years. It is interesting to note that crowd control has been the least worrying cause of disruption of the celebration, as nearly 30,000 Ganesh idols are immersed peacefully every year.