Karnataka: 3 sanitation workers die while cleaning sewage system

Bengaluru: Three sanitation workers engaged in manual scavenging died of asphyxiation while cleaning a public sewage system in Ramanagara town located around 50 km from Bengaluru on Friday

Bengaluru: Three sanitation workers engaged in manual scavenging died of asphyxiation while cleaning a public sewage system in Ramanagara town located around 50 km from Bengaluru on Friday. The three workers, all in the early thirties, died in the drainage even though manual scavenging has been banned since 1993.

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Ramanagara district police identified the deceased as Manjunath (32), Manjunath (30) and Rajesh (32). According to police, Manjunath who had gone into the drainage collapsed due to asphyxiation. Soon, the other two went inside to rescue him but died inside.

According to police, the three workers were hired by the Ramanagara Municipal Corporation through a contractor. Police who have filed an FIR has arrested one Manoj on Friday, who is an associate of a contractor named Harish. Following the incident, two government staffers were booked and transferred .

These deaths come just months after 30-year-old Lal Ahmed and 25-year-old Rasheed Ahmed died while cleaning a manhole in north Karnataka’s Kalburgi on January 26. In a similar incident, on February 23, a pourakarmika (civic worker) working for the municipality in Maddur town of Mandya district died by suicide, months after he was allegedly forced to clean a manhole without safety equipment.

According to Karnataka State Commission for Safai Karamcharis, the state has witnessed 36 manual scavenging-related incidents since 2008, resulting in 72 deaths. Police cases were filed in all the incidents, but there has not been a single conviction.

In four cases, police filed a B Report, which meant they did not find any evidence to file a charge sheet. Five cases were registered as unnatural deaths, 15 were under trial, two under investigation and in 12 cases, the accused were acquitted.

“Any death related to manual scavenging is called an accident, but the truth is that it is culpable homicide, if not murder. When you send someone inside a pit with poisonous gases, you are aware of the danger to that person’s life,” said Clifton Rozario, a city-based advocate, who has filed the petition against manual scavenging in the high court.

Even though The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act came into existence in 2013, the inhuman practice not only continues, but it has caused lives,” Rozario said.

The Karnataka high court too, in December 2020, had noted the state government’s laxity in implementing the law in full letter and spirit. A bench led by Chief Justice AS Oka had noted that forcing one to perform manual scavenging amounts to a violation of the fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 21 (protection of life and personal liberty) of the Indian Constitution.