Faridabad: Delivery executive electrocuted while crossing flooded road

Police said locals used sticks and bamboos to move Khelawan away from the pole before taking him to a hospital, where doctors declared him dead.

A 26-year-old delivery executive died after allegedly being electrocuted by current leaking from an electric pole while crossing a waterlogged road in Faridabad on Friday evening, police said on Saturday. The incident took place around 5.20pm on Roshan Nagar-Sehatpur road, they added.

The victim was identified as Ram Khelawan, a native of Nawabpur village in Uttar Pradesh’s Shahjahanpur district, officers added. Police said Khelawan supported his three sisters after their parents died while living in Sehatpur, Palla area of Faridabad.

Police said Khelawan was riding to deliver an order from an e-commerce warehouse when his motorcycle went into a pothole on the heavily waterlogged road, causing him to lose balance. He allegedly tried to take support of an electric pole and was electrocuted after touching it, falling into the water, officers added.

Yashpal Yadav, public relations officer of Faridabad police, said locals spotted Khelawan and alerted the police control room. “None mustered courage to rescue him out of the fear of being electrocuted,” he said. Locals later used sticks and bamboos to push him away from the spot before pulling him out and taking him to a nearby hospital.

Yadav said Khelawan’s family denied foul play or negligence. His cousin gave a statement calling it an accidental death, following which an inquiry under section 194 of Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita was conducted at Palla police station. The body was handed over to the family after an autopsy on Saturday.

Discom officials, asking not to be named, said they were yet to receive any formal information from the police or the family about the incident. They said an inquiry would be launched once the information was received.

Meanwhile, Khelawan’s colleagues protested at the warehouse, alleging they were coerced into making deliveries despite heavy rain and waterlogging. “We had asked management to close delivery towards Sehatpur... but none cared and Khelawan died,” an executive said, asking not to be named.

Earlier, a man died in Gurugram’s Bhondsi on Wednesday after contact with a damp wall bearing a damaged live wire, while another person was electrocuted by a high-tension wire in Farrukhnagar on Thursday amid heavy rain.