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Delhi biker's body was in pit for nearly ‘8 hours’, 5 persons knew, none helped
According to the FIR, a copy of which is with HT, the victim was admitted to the hospital “unconscious and unresponsive”. He was declared dead on arrival.
A sub-contractor was on Saturday arrested in connection with the death of a 25-year-old bank telecaller who fell into an unsecured Delhi Jal Board (DJB) pit, investigators said, as it emerged that the man’s body lay there for nearly eight hours and several people aware of the accident chose not to inform the police or authorities.
The sub-contractor, Rajesh Kumar Prajapati, was one of at least five people aware that Kamal Dhyani’s motorcycle had plunged into the 4.5-metre-deep Janakpuri pit but concealed this knowledge from the police. The 47-year-old man has been booked for culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
Investigators are now trying to ascertain if Dhyani died soon after falling in, around 12.15am on Friday, or hours later, as people walked past on the busy street near Andhra School in Janakpuri.
Police pieced together a grim sequence of events as the five tried hard to keep the incident under wraps from police – from the moment Dhyani fell in, till a woman passerby dialled the emergency hotline at 8.03am – a delay that potentially scuttled any chance of saving the HDFC Bank employee.
Delhi chief minister Rekha Gupta in a post on X said “instructions have been issued to all relevant departments to submit safety reports of all construction and excavation sites within three days.”
The state government also issued an eight-point safety directive to prevent such incidences.
“Strict compliance with safety standards will be ensured, and accountability will be fixed at every level,” she said.
Meanwhile, a preliminary Delhi Jal Board (DJB) inquiry underlined a raft of lapses, including inadequate public safety arrangements and negligence by the contractors and supervising engineers. It concluded that the site was unsecured and unattended — arrangements the people who withheld information from the police were responsible for.
Dhyani finished his shift at the Rohini call centre and got on his TVS Apache motorcycle for the roughly 20-km commute back home to Kailashpuri in Palam Colony.
Officers combed through CCTV camera footage and found that, around 12.15am, a black car stopped on the carriageway opposite. The passerby, Sagarpur resident Vipin Singh, was driving home from a wedding when he saw the motorcyclist fall into the pit, said police.
“Singh stopped the car near the residential colony and informed the security guard at the main gate of a residential colony about the incident. The guard alerted Yogesh, a labourer working on the pit and staying in a tent 10-feet away,” said deputy commissioner of police (west) Sharad Bhaskar.
“Yogesh walked to the pit and saw a motorcycle inside with its headlight on. A human being lay beside it,” he added.
At 12.22am, Yogesh called his employer, Prajapati, who arrived at the spot around 20 minutes later in his car from his house in Tri Nagar around 12km away.
“Prajapati saw the victim and his motorcycle lying inside the pit. Neither he nor Yogesh informed police,” added Bhaskar.
The sub-contractor then called and informed his boss, the contractor, Himanshu Gupta. In fact, Gupta, Prajapati and a few others, who Delhi Police declined to identify, had a conference call, all as Dhyani’s body lay in the pit.
Prajapati turned away at 1.45am and returned home. Yogesh fled the spot soon after.
“We have sent a team to Yogesh’s village in Etawah, Uttar Pradesh, to nab him. Gupta is also out of Delhi and another team has been dispatched to nab him,” said joint commissioner of police (western range) Jatin Narwal. Police did not reveal where Gupta was.
According to the first information report (FIR), a copy of which is with HT, the victim was admitted to the hospital “unconscious and unresponsive”. He was declared dead on arrival.
It also says the pit was dug by DJB and left open without any safety arrangements to alert road users.
“There was no barricading, no warning sign or security guard deployed at the site despite the pit being dug in the middle of the road,” said the FIR.
Authorities failed to ensure basic safety measures around the hole dug on Wednesday for sewer line work.
“The spot inspection clearly reveals that the DJB and its contractor were aware that leaving an open pit dug on a public road without safety measures could result in a person falling into it and dying. Despite this knowledge, they did not put in place adequate safety arrangements, nor was any security guard deployed at the site,” said the FIR.
Details in the FIR concurred with DJB’s initial findings.
“The inquiry revealed that the project site was left unattended at the time of the incident, reflecting a serious lapse in mandatory safety arrangements. This failure highlights a clear deficiency in the discharge of official duties/responsibilities by the Agency ... and supervising officers of the concerned Engineering Project Division,” said the DJB report.
The report also noted that while the road was shut from both ends, barricading at the site was “insufficient” and “improperly maintained”, creating easy access to a restricted area.
Meanwhile, Delhi urban development minister and Janakpuri legislator Ashish Sood announced a comprehensive technical and administrative investigation.
He also inspected the site with senior officials of the Public Works Department (PWD), DJB, traffic police, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and senior district administration officials.
“Any officer, agency or contractor found directly or indirectly responsible will face strict action. In addition, a comprehensive safety audit of infrastructure work in the Janakpuri area will be held to prevent recurrence of such incidents,” he added.
(with inputs from Saloni Bhatia)
