A two-year-old boy died after being bitten by a snake at a Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) garden in Vashi on Wednesday.
Sumeet Sonkamble was the son of police constable Vishal Sonkamble, who is attached to Turbhe police station. Sumeet, who lived in a C-type building in Sector 26, would visit the park in his locality frequently. On Wednesday, too, the child went there with his grandfather around 6.30 p.m.
Just as they walked into the park, Sumeet started crying and complained to his grandfather that an ant had bitten him. “I removed his socks and massaged his foot a little after which he started playing. Around half an hour later, he drank water and soon after, foam came out from his mouth and he fell unconscious,” Sumeet’s grandfather said.
The boy was immediately rushed to PKC Hospital in Vashi where the doctors said he had suffered a snake bite and asked the family to take him to Vashi NMMC hospital. At NMMC hospital, Sumeet was declared dead.
The second son of Mr. Sonkamble, Sumeet has a five-year-old elder brother. On Thursday evening, his grandfather went to the garden again and spoke to the watchman, and the latter confirmed there were snakes in the park.
“It is an unfortunate incident. We will carry out a spray treatment in the gardens to keep the snakes away. However, in this incident, the negligence was on the guardian’s part hence the NMMC can’t give compensation,” Mayor Jaywant Sutar said. The NMMC had developed the children’s park around two years ago, beside a pond, by spending around ₹4.25 crore.
