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3 die after inhaling toxic fumes while cleaning septic tank in Tamil Nadu resort
The resort is located in Sriperumbudur, about 50 km from Chennai. According to police officers familiar with the matter, the three men — Naveen Kumar (30), Ranganathan (51), and Thirumalai (18) — entered the tank around 11am.
Three people died of asphyxiation on Friday while they were cleaning the septic tank of a private resort in Tamil Nadu’s Kancheepuram district, police said, adding that the resort manager and contractor were taken in for questioning.
The resort is located in Sriperumbudur, about 50 km from Chennai. According to police officers familiar with the matter, the three men — Naveen Kumar (30), Ranganathan (51), and Thirumalai (18) — entered the tank around 11am.
An officer privy to the investigation said the men inhaled toxic fumes and subsequently drowned in the sewage.
All three were residents of Kancheepuram district.
The resort manager and the contractor who hired the trio have been taken in for questioning. “They will be arrested under various sections of the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 and the Indian Penal Code,” said a senior police officer of Kancheepuram who did not wish to be named.
“We are questioning the resort’s owner also and if he is found to be liable, he will also be included as an accused in the case,” the officer said.
According to data provided in April by Union minister of social justice and empowerment, Virendra Kumar, 27 people have died in Tamil Nadu while cleaning the sewers since 2019, the highest in the country.
Uttar Pradesh reported the second highest number of such deaths — 26 — for the same time period.
Union minister Kumar was responding to a question by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Mahesh Poddar in the Rajya Sabha.
The practice of manual scavenging was first banned in 1993 cases are still reported from the across the country. The government distinguishes between manual scavenging – as people cleaning human excreta by hand – and cleaning of sewers and septic tanks.
