When ten-year-old Prachi Sen of the Drishti Public School in Madhya Pradesh stepped on the dais to shake hands with Sheila Dikshit, the Delhi chief minister noticed that something was amiss.
"What happened to your left hand? Why are you covering it," Dikshit asked the school girl. "My fingers had to be cut to save my life," replied Prachi rather innocently.
On hearing this, Dikshit quickly took Prachi's hand and kissed it, bringing a smile to the girl's face. The chief minister had organised a special function in honour of the children who had won the National Bravery Awards for 2008.
Prachi had won the Geeta Chopra award, the prestigious award for a girl child instituted in the name of Geeta Chopra who along with her brother, Sanjay, died confronting kidnappers in 1978.
Brave Prachi saved four children from getting electrocuted. In doing so, her left hand was severely burnt and had to be amputated.
The mishap occurred when she was playing with her siblings and friends on her terrace. A four-year-old boy among them picked up seven-feet long iron rod and started rotating it. "A high tension electric line got entangled with the rod. One by one -- all the children came into its grip and were thrown by the electric shock. I received the maximum brunt of it because I held the rod for the longest time before my mother rescued me," she said.
Image: Prachi Sen saved four children from being electrocuted. In doing so, she lost the fingers on her left hand. Text: Onkar Singh | Photographs: Chaman Gautam
Also See: The real heroes
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