Man dies while cleaning drain, body fished out
NEW DELHI: A 37-year-old man drowned in a drain in North Delhi’s Jharoda, near Wazirabad, on Sunday while cleaning it. The contract labourer’s body was recovered by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) rescue team after an eight-hour-long search operation.
The NDRF team was assisted by the Delhi government’s disaster management team, the police and fire officials.
While the police said that the drain belonged to the Delhi government’s irrigation and flood control department and the cleaning was being carried out by a contractor on its behest, the concerned department denied it.
“No repair or cleaning of any drain is being conducted by our department. We always clean drains during the monsoon; however, we will look into the matter,” an irrigation and flood control department official said, requesting anonymity.
Deputy commissioner of police (north) Nupur Prasad said the police control room received a call around 3pm about the man who was trapped inside the Jharoda drain. “The caller said that one Kishan of Shriram Basti got trapped in the drain while clearing it. The fire and disaster management rescue teams tried to find Kishan. But when they could not locate him, NDRF rescue teams were called in to continue the operation,” Prasad said.
According to the DCP, the contractor Anil had brought five men—kishan, Manoj, Azizuk, Umesh and Raju—to remove garbage from the drain. The cleaning had been going on for the past six days. On Sunday, the workers began cleaning the drain from 9am, entering it in teams of two.
“Kishan and Manoj went into the drain to remove the garbage. Manoj came out, Kishan could not.when the others failed to locate him, one of them called the police,” the DCP said. “A case under relevant sections of the manual scavenging act is being registered at the Wazirabad police station,” she added.
The police said according to workers, they were hired by Anil for ₹400 a day to clean sewage. The contractor had not provided them any safety kit before asking them to enter the drain.
A senior fire official, on the condition of anonymity, said that the drain was full of plastic and other garbage as well as toxic gases.