Karnal, July 2 -- Please take me to the farms, or else I won't go to school," were four-year-old Nirvair Singh's final words to his father. The heartbreaking plea preceded a tragedy that unfolded in Ambala Cantonment on Tuesday morning, when the child slipped into an abandoned, 220-foot-deep borewell. Despite a 21-hour multi-agency rescue operation, the boy was tragically pulled out dead in the early hours of Wednesday. The boy was adamant about visiting his ancestral fields one last time before starting a new phase of life with a new uniform, bag, and books, little knowing he would be laid to rest on the day he was supposed to take his very first steps into school. The apple of his grandfather's eye, the boy went with his father, Manjit Singh, to give food to his grandfather, but accidentally stepped into the open borewell in front of his helpless grandfather, Karnail Singh. After their own initial, unsuccessful attempts to pull him out following the incident around 6:30 am on Tuesday, the family alerted local authorities around 7 am, prompting an extensive rescue operation supervised by Ambala deputy commissioner Ajay Singh Tomar. A team of State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) started the operation during early hours, which was later taken over by the Indian Army and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) at around 11 am. The joint team suffered multiple setbacks due to rain, water accumulation in the narrow 9-inch shaft, and repeated, failed attempts to retrieve the boy using specialised hooks. The rescue teams had also planned to dig a parallel shaft on Wednesday if conventional methods continued to fail. However, multiple high water tables threatened to instantly flood any newly excavated pits, severely restricting their efforts. However, the child was brought to the surface at 3.20am and immediately rushed by ambulance to the sub-divisional civil hospital in Ambala Cantonment, where doctors declared him brought dead. Dr Sumit Kukreja, medical officer at the hospital's trauma centre, said the body arrived at around 4am. The post-mortem revealed multiple injuries to his head, chest, and knees. Dr Kukreja said that the cause of death was a combination of these traumatic injuries and drowning, as the board of doctors conducting the autopsy found muddy water inside the child's body. When asked about the time of death, he told HT, "Though this is difficult to confirm the timing, but I believe the boy could have survived even the initial hours of the fall as we have found the muddy water in his respiratory tracts. After the autopsy, which took nearly 30 minutes, the body was handed over to the family at 11am." The family brought the body home for antim darshan (last glimpse) of their child, after which his last rites were performed at a village cremation ground. His father Manjit lit the funeral pyre amid heavy rain and in the presence of a huge crowd. The son of an electricity board employee and the younger sibling to a 12-year-old sister, Nirvair was born in 2022 after family's constant prayers for a second child. Nirvair's uncle Harinder Singh said that their child died due to the negligence by some fellow villagers and they are hopeful for strict action against them by the police. Ambala superintendent of police Ajit Singh Shekhawat said they received a complaint from the family, alleging that the owner and the contractor left the borewell uncovered, took no safety measures, left the opening exposed, and displayed no warning signs. Based on this, a first information report (FIR) was lodged. Deputy superintendent of police Vijay Kumar said that the Ambala Sadar police station registered an FIR for death due to negligence under Section 106 (causing death by negligence) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) against Harnek Singh, the field owner, and Baljit Singh and Dilpreet Singh, who contracted the land....