Janakpuri biker death case: Delhi police arrest pit contractor

Delhi Police arrested contractor Himanshu Gupta after a man died from falling into an unsecured pit. Gupta had evaded arrest since a bail denial.

The Delhi Police has arrested a contractor who had dug up a pit as part of a Delhi Jal Board (DJB) project in Janakpuri, where a 25-year-old man died after falling into the pit on the night of February 5, officers said, adding that he had been absconding since the high court denied his anticipatory bail plea on February 25.

The pit in Janakpuri. (HT Photo)

Police said they arrested the contractor, Himanshu Gupta, 45, from Udaipur in Rajasthan in the early hours of Tuesday.

“About seven-eight teams were working on the case and we traced his location using technical surveillance. The team then went to Udaipur and he was arrested from a hotel early morning on Tuesday,” said deputy commissioner of police (west) Sharad Bhaskar.

Kamal Dhyani, a 25-year-old bank telecaller, died in west Delhi’s Janakpuri in the early hours of February 5, reportedly after falling into a 4-5-metre-deep pit that was left uncovered and unsecured on a poorly lit road. Dhyani was returning home to Kailashpuri in Palam Colony on his TVS Apache motorcycle after finishing his shift, when the incident took place.

The probe found that Dhyani’s body lay in the pit for nearly eight hours, with people aware of the incident, including Gupta, choosing not to alert the authorities. Footage from a CCTV camera showed a passerby, driving a car along with his family, inform a security guard of a residential colony in the vicinity, who, in turn, alerted a labourer, Yogesh, who was working at the pit and was staying in a tent 10 feet away, police said.

Yogesh, after looking into the pit, informed his employer Prajapati at 12.22am and he arrived in a car around 20 minutes later from his Tri Nagar residence. However, neither of them informed the police. Prajapati, who was found to be the subcontractor, reportedly called Gupta and returned at around 1.45am, police said. Yogesh and Prajapati were arrested later.

Subsequently, contractors Himanshu Gupta and Kavish Gupta, directors of the private firm tasked with the work applied for anticipatory bail, but the high court denied it on the basis that a human life was lost in a “preventable accident” which took place due to lack of adequate safeguards, non-availability of necessary rescue equipment, absence of first-aid facilities, and the failure to ensure prompt intimation and intervention by the police and medical authorities.