Five booked for negligence after 10-year-old dies in lift accident

The incident occurred in Building No. 1 of Lallubhai Compound in Mankhurd around 10.30am on June 7. Prior to that, the Mankhurd police says, the lift had not been working properly and despite complaints lodged by several society members, it was kept operational without carrying out repairs.

MUMBAI: A month after a 10-year-old boy died falling down an elevator shaft, an FIR was registered on Tuesday against five people including the secretary, chairman and treasurer of a seven-storeyed building along with the lift maintenance contractor and a technician.

Five booked for negligence after 10-year-old dies in lift accident

The Mankhurd police said the lift had not been working properly and despite complaints lodged by several society members, it was kept operational without carrying out repairs.

The incident occurred in Building No. 1 of Lallubhai Compound in Mankhurd around 10.30am on June 7, when Rudra Borhate, 10, was returning home from a grocery store. He got into the only lift in the building and pressed the button for the fifth floor, where he resided with his family.

The lift, however, shot past the fifth floor at an unusually high speed and stopped at the seventh floor leaving a gap of 13 to 14 inches from the floor. Rudra tried to step out of the elevator but fell into the gap and down the elevator shaft, said the police.

As the unusually fast lift and Rudra’s fall both made loud noises, residents of the seventh floor rushed out of their flats and inspected the lift. They saw Rudra lying at the base of the elevator shaft.

They pulled Rudra out and took him to the nearby government hospital where he was declared brought dead, said Mahendra Koli, senior police inspector of Mankhurd police station.

Priyanka Borhate, Rudra’s mother, complained to the police that the incident occurred due to negligence on the part of the building’s office bearers, contractor and the technician, said a police officer

She alleged that they did not maintain the lift properly and kept it operational even though it was behaving erratically. The contract for lift maintenance was given a few months ago, added the officer.

According to the police, Priyanka lived in the building with her husband Ganesh, their children Tanmay,12, Rudra, Swaraj, 7, and Sharvari, 4, and brother-in-law Prashant, 38.

In her statement to the police, Priyanka said that the lift had not been working properly for a few weeks and often stopped functioning. She claimed that the residents had complained about it in the WhatsApp group of the society.

She said Prashant had also complained to the society committee about the erratic lift. The emergency button in the lift had not been working, said a police officer.

“We conducted a preliminary probe and based on the statement given by the mother of the victim, we have registered an FIR against the committee members — secretary Vedprakash Gupta, chairman Gyandev Shinde, treasurer Janardan Ajarlekar, lift contractor Mohammad Shaikh and technician Aslam Khan under Section 304(a) (causing death by negligence) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal code, said Koli.

Further investigation is on, and we will arrest the suspects soon, added Koli.