Man accidentally falls into Agra canal, dies

A 24-year-old man died when he accidentally fell into the Agra canal while scaling the iron railings of a water park in south Delhi’s Kalindi Kunj near Okhla, allegedly in a bid to evade thrashing by three security guards on Sunday night.

The man’s body was retrieved on Monday morning by rescue teams of the national disaster response force (NDRF).

Police said the man, identified by his first name Sameer, was drunk and he accidentally fell into the canal. But his family alleged the security guards first assaulted him with sticks and when he died, they threw his body into the canal. They said guards dumped Sameer’s body into the canal to mislead police.

Police officers, however, said the guards did not inform police despite knowing that the man had fallen into the canal. The incident came to their notice only when Sameer’s two friends, who were with him when the guards started assaulting them, called the police control room and informed his family, they said.

Chinmoy Biswal, deputy commissioner of police (southeast), said a case under section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) has been registered at the Jamia Nagar police station.

“We have detained the guards. They are being questioned to ascertain the sequence of events leading to Sameer’s death. We will arrest them if found guilty,” said Biswal.