3 kids, 2 other ragpickers drown in drain

Five ragpickers, including three children and two men, drowned in a drain in Southwest Delhi’s Chhawla on Saturday morning.

The victims were trapped in an MCD drain in Goyla Khurd village. The police officials are waiting for the post mortem report to find the exact cause of death. An official of the public works department (PWD) said that there is a strong possibility that the ragpickers died due to heat and gas that might have built up inside the drain.

The deputy commissioner of police (southwest district), Surender Kumar, said that the deceased have been identified as Sahidul (10), Safikul (9), Lalchand (7), Hasibul (30), and Ali (25).

According to the police, Sahidul, Safikul, and Lalchand were picking garbage near an open drain in Chhawla area on Saturday morning, when they saw some bottles in the drain.

With the intention of picking them up, Safikul and Lalchand climbed inside the drain, while Safikul kept scanning through above.

“When his two friends failed to come out, Safikul peeped inside the drain, but didn’t find them. While calling out their names, he saw one of his friends floating. Safikul immediately ran to his locality and called two persons, Hasibul and Ali, for help,” said a police official.

The three got down into the drain to rescue the others. Unfortunately, they couldn’t come out of the drain due to the heavy flow of water. The victims then started shouting for help. A passerby heard them and immediately made a call to the police. A huge crowd gathered at the spot. A PCR team and officials of the fire emergency response team reached the spot. By then all the five had drowned and were nowhere to be seen.

After hours of effort of the police, a fire team, and PWD officials, all the five bodies were fished out and rushed to the Rao Tula Ram Hospital where all of them were declared brought dead. “The families of the deceased have been informed,” said Mr Kumar. the garbage