3 men drown after fainting inside underground tank

Investigators said that looking at the circumstances, it seems that the trio lost consciousness due to lack of oxygen inside the tank which was about 8-10 feet deep and with a narrow opening

Three construction workers died on Friday allegedly after they went inside an underground water tank, lost consciousness, and drowned in one foot deep water at Hans Enclave in Sector-33, police said, adding that the underground tank was built a few days ago in an under-construction house.

Three construction workers died on Friday allegedly after they went inside an underground water tank, lost consciousness, and drowned in one foot deep water at Hans Enclave in Sector-33 of Gurugram. (Representational Photo)

The house owner, Hari Om and contractor, Mohammad Ibrahim, have been booked of negligence in the case.

According to police, the deceased are Raj Kumar, 21, Mohammad Samad, 32, and Mohammad Sagir, 42 -- all from Bihar and residents of Gurugram. They were engaged in the construction of the house for the last three months and the incident took place at around 9.30am on Friday.

Investigators said that looking at the circumstances, it seems that the trio lost consciousness due to lack of oxygen inside the tank which was about 8-10 feet deep and with a narrow opening. Around five workers were present at the site at the time of the incident and one of these had to open a plyboard support inside the tank.

“Kumar seems to have first entered the tank, and when no one heard from him for long, Samad looked for him and peeped inside the tank. Samad might have seen Kumar lying in the water with his face down and so he must have gone down too,” an investigator said, based on the information given by the locals about the location of the bodies while being pulled out.

When both of them were gone for long, Sagir, similarly appears to have peeped and went behind the two workers. When others at the site didn’t hear anything from the trio, they searched and found all of them unconscious inside the tank and pulled them out with the help of locals. They also tried to revive them but remained unsuccessful after which they were taken to hospital. The three were declared dead on arrival.

Inspector Arjun Dev, station house officer of Sadar police station, said that whether the trio suffocated to death or drowned after losing consciousness, will be clear after the postmortem reports are released.

Dev said that Rajesh Kumar, brother of deceased Kumar, has submitted a complaint against the house owner and the contractor on the basis of which an FIR was registered under section 106 (causing death by negligence) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.

“The workers were not provided any safety equipment before entering the tank. Investigation is currently underway and action will soon be taken against the two,” Dev said.