Electrical Problem I scratch my head!!!

[saleem]

Hi every one Some one please help I am newbee on this forum. I have 2000 Beetle TDI had battery drain problem. and then suddenly smoke filled the car and instrument cluster went out completely. When I opened the panels and looked behind there was burned harness and Blue connector was mainly affected wire 7 and 24th seems to have burned. Well harness burn has gone back almost to the firewall. I repaired the harness with new blue connector and put the same old cluster back I was able to start the car so I have assembled everything back. Detected fuse 11 was blown (5amp) replaced that when I started the car everything work all lights on instrument cluster came up and went out just like normal and so turned the ignition off and noticed smoke and plastic tape burning. I quickly disconnected battery and opened the cluster and found out the same thing burn marks on pin 7 and 24 and melted wires. No I do not have coolant bottle issue. Is there anybody can tell me whats going on.
1- Do I have bad instrument cluster? It worked fine!!
2- Why wires burning I thought fuses should protect that.
3- Is this a relay issue.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

[HarlequinPixie]

any problems with the large fuses on top of the battery?

[saleem]

Fuses on battery top are all checking out good.

[saleem]

Finally I found the battery drain and cluster harness burnout problem. I had to remove the battery craddle. Therewas a harness touching the starter terminal and due to vibration plastic sover was erroded and shorting the hot wire and draining the battery not only that it was the cause of cluster harness brnout. Good thing I did not change the cluster. Wires #7 and #24 on Blue connector on cluster were burning. Wires under the battery cradle that were shorting were morethan one and were going to ??? I really would have rtraced those but i didnot.