Retail store employee dies as elevator collapses on him

BENGALURU: A 40-year-old contract employee of a retail store died when a service elevator collapsed on him at the supermarket located in GT World Mall on Magadi Road on Friday morning. KP Agrahara police have filed a case of negligence against the management of the supermarket.
The man has been identified as Srinivas, a resident of Bhuvaneshswarinagar in KP Agrahara near Magadi Road. He worked as a loader at Big Bazaar located on the first floor of GT World Mall.

Around 9.30am on Friday, Srinivas loaded goods into a service elevator and pressed the button to send the goods to the first floor. Srinivas did not enter the elevator and was waiting on the ground floor. As the elevator started moving up, it got stuck between the ground floor and the first floor. Srinivas then opened the grill gate and moved into the space between the base of elevator and the ground to fix the elevator. As he was fixing the elevator, it collapsed on him, crushing his head. Other staff members soon alerted Srinivas’s brother Manjunath who then informed the police. KP Agrahara police rushed to the spot and moved the body to Victoria Hospital for a postmortem. KP Agrahara police filed a case of negligence against the manager of the retail store as the elevator was allegedly not maintained properly. “Further investigations are on,” a senior police officer said.

Speaking to Express, Manjunath said Srinivas had joined work just three months ago. He is survived by a wife Nanjamani, and two sons. “An employee, Mallanna, informed me about the accident. An hour before the incident, three staff members – Shwetha, Mallikarjun and Kumar – had complained to the manager that the elevator had been getting stuck for the past few months but the manager ignored it. It is a case of negligence and the management is responsible for the death of my brother.”