A 16-year-old boy died in Tskneti on Tuesday. Locals told journalists that he was killed when he came into contact with exposed electric wiring in the village square, a place where children commonly play, but where repair works are ongoing.
Tbilisi City Hall says that landscaping works are in progress at the site, yet the works did not involve electrics.
An investigation is being conducted under Article 240 of the Criminal Code, which involves a “violation of safety rules during mining, construction, or other work.”
On hearing of the boy’s death, the administration of Vake district published a statement which claimed that in the square where the incident happened, electrical equipment was installed illegally, in violation of safety norms.
The incident rocks society particularly hard as, in October 2022, three teens were hit by an electric shock when they were trying to retrieve a ball that fell into the water in the newly renovated Vake Park fountain. The children were taken to hospital by ambulance. One of them, 13-year-old Marita Meparashvili, died. The other two teenagers were discharged. The 9 people arrested were sentenced to prison as a measure of restraint by Tbilisi City Court, among them Lasha Purtsvanidze, the head of Greenservice+, and Giorgi Vakhtangashvili, the deputy head of the Environmental Protection Service of Tbilisi City Hall.
“The investigative agency will do everything to establish the objective truth in this case, and where carelessness, indifference or deliberate action on the part of specific persons is revealed, of course, we will react accordingly,” Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, Aleksandre Darakhvelidze, noted Wednesday.
“I share the family’s grief. Each of our units is actively working to investigate the responsibility of those involved, to find out whether someone’s fault or negligence caused this accident,” he added.
By Team GT
