E-Paper
Construction worker sleeping on roadside crushed to death by crane
New Delhi:
New Delhi:
A 31-year-old worker employed by a private firm constructing a drain along GT Karnal Road in outer Delhi’s Alipur was crushed to death, allegedly by a crane hired by the same contractor, while he was sleeping on the roadside early Sunday, police said.
The crane driver allegedly abandoned the vehicle about a kilometre from the spot and fled. “We have identified the crane driver and are trying to find him,” Gaurav Sharma, deputy commissioner of police (outer-north), said.
The victim, Manoj Saini, is a native of Akbarpur in Uttar Pradesh and was among a group of workers camping at the site since over a month to build the drain. “The work had been outsourced to a private firm,” the DCP said.
According to one of his colleagues, on Saturday night, Saini had gone off to sleep on the roadside while the others found it a little bit cold and preferred the tents.
Around 3.30 am, one of the workers woke up and checked on Saini. “He wasn’t responding when I called out to him. He was covered in a blanket and I thought that he must be sleeping. But when I checked again sometime later, I found him to be crushed and dead,” said the worker who didn’t give out his name.
The worker alleged that the way the blanket was placed on top of Saini’s body, it indicated the crane driver had placed it to avoid an immediate detection of the death.
But the DCP said the workers themselves covered the body with a blanket until the police arrived.
The workers informed their contractor about the death after which the police were alerted around 7.45 am.
While the cause of the death wasn’t immediately clear at that time, the police found tracks of a large vehicle leading away from the body.
They followed the tracks to find an abandoned crane about a kilometre away. “There were blood stains on the tyres of the crane, confirming the vehicle had crushed him,” said another investigator who didn’t want to be identified.
The police registered a case of causing death due to negligence and seized the crane. “The crane was being used to drop pipes for drainage construction at the site and belongs to the same firm that employed Saini. It appears that after dropping the pipes, the crane crushed the Saini,” the DCP said.
While the driver is yet to be nabbed, investigators suspect the presence of dust along the roadside due to the construction work affected visibility, leading to the accident.
