Youth swallowed by machine while grinding pre-mix for Prabhadevi Chinese food stall

The residents who heard his scream rushed to the spot and saw the machine had pulled in half of his body

MUMBAI: A 19-year-old youth died after being drawn into a grinding machine that shreds, mixes and kneads ingredients used by Chinese food stalls and even larger eateries. The incident took place in Prabhadevi, where the youth worked at ‘Sachin Kothekar’s Chinese Centre’.

Mumbai, India. Dec 16, 2024: General view of the kitchen where the worker lost his life after he got pulled in by a grinder at Worli in Mumbai. Mumbai, India. Dec 16, 2024. (Photo by Raju Shinde/HT Photo) (Hindustan Times)

Business was brisk, as it usually is at Kothekar’s food stall on a Saturday night. As he began to run out of ingredients, Kothekar sent Suraj Yadav, one of his seven employees, to fetch some more. Yadav hurried to a small unit his employer had rented at Nariman Bhat Nagar, nearby. It housed a large grinding machine that processed the raw material Kothekar used in his own stall and also sold as a pre-mix to other food stalls, said the police.

The machine, waist-high and of the kind used by eateries all over the city, swiftly chops cabbage and onion widely used by these stalls. It also grinds some of the ingredients and kneads the dough used in Asian cuisine. Police said people in the vicinity of the machine suddenly heard Yadav’s screams and rushed to the rented unit. They found him partially inside the large mouth of the machine, motionless. They told Kothekar what had happened and he rushed to the unit, said an officer with the Dadar police station.

“We called the fire-brigade to remove Yadav from the machine and rushed him to KEM Hospital. But he was declared dead before admission,” said the police officer.

Police said Yadav had been working at Kothekar’s food stall for three months, and like most employees who work at small eateries like this, had received no formal training to operate the machine. Yadav, who lived in Janata Colony, Adarsh Nagar, Worli, was listening to music on his headphones when he extended his arm too far into the machine while it was working, according to Kothekar. “His arm got stuck and he was pulled in,” said a police officer.

Police have registered a case against Yadav’s employer, Sachin Kothekar, under Section 106 (causing death by negligence) of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023. They registered the case on a complaint filed by Mahesh Yadav, a cousin of the deceased.