Two dead, one critical after falling into Malad East manhole
The police are in the process of registering a case pertaining to death due to negligence, as no safety gear was provided to the labourer
MUMBAI: Three people fell into an approximately 30-feet-deep manhole leading to a drainage line on the premises of a private under-construction building in Pimpripada, Malad East, at around 3.45 pm on Wednesday. The victims were taken to HBT Trauma Care Hospital at Jogeshwari, where two of them, Raju, 50, and Javed Shaikh, 35, were declared brought dead. The third, Akib Shaikh, 19, is in a critical condition and was put on the ventilator in the hospital’s ICU.
According to locals residing in Shanti Nagar, the slum opposite the construction site, Raju, the first person to fall in, was a worker at the site. “When he fell in, the watchman came out onto the road and yelled for people to help. My brother-in-law was playing cricket on the road, so we all went,” said Shabnam Sheikh, wife of the deceased Javed.
“Aqib went into the drain to try and rescue Raju, and my husband went in after him,” said Shabnam. “Another brother, Hussain, also tried to go in but felt dizzy, so didn’t. None of them came out. I tried to go in too to get them out with a rope tied around myself, but people around didn’t let me.”
The locals then called the fire brigade, which rescued the men. As per the fire officer on duty, Prashant Matekar, and preliminary police reports, the victims, after lowering themselves in, passed out from the toxic fumes from the sewerage and then fell into the drain’s depths.
“The people at the construction site did not help at all. We ourselves took the rescued to hospital in a rickshaw,” said a neighbour Vidhichand Saroj. “Why did the watchman call the residents for help and not other workers or the supervisor?” Saroj said that despite the death of two people, work was still going on at the construction site.
M Pathekar, the investigating officer from Dindoshi police station, confirmed that one of the deceased men was a labourer, while the other two ventured inside the septic tank to save the worker. “There was a supervisor present at the spot who alerted the police and fire brigade,” he added. Kiran Dighavkar, assistant commissioner of P North Ward, confirmed that the site was a private under-construction building along the reservoir road.
The police are now in the process of registering a case under Section 304 (a) of the Indian Penal Code pertaining to death due to negligence, as there was no safety gear provided to the labourer. “We will register the FIR against the supervisor,” said Pathekar.
Javed worked as a lighting technician at Film City while Aqib drove a rickshaw. Javed is survived by his wife and two children aged seven and 16.
The bodies of the deceased will be sent for a postmortem on Thursday. Locals were adamant that they would not accept the bodies if an FIR was not filed against the builder.
(Inputs by Megha Sood)