Lift comes down on 8-year-old in Saroornagar, kills him instantly

HYDERABAD: An eight-year-old boy was killed in a freak accident in Durga Nagar locality of Saroornagar on Sunday morning. The deceased C Venkata Tashwant, son of the watchman of Satya Sai Enclave apartments in Durga Nagar, was peeping down the hoist way of the elevator when the lift came down on him. C Srinivas, father of the deceased, who had migrated to the city in search of a job around three years ago, is said to be in a state of shock.  

Sunday being a holiday, Tashwanth and his younger brother Srinath woke up a little late. While Srikanth was washing cars of the residents of building, his sons who had accompanied him, started playing in the basement. Meanwhile, Srinath reportedly pressed the elevator’s button and ran towards his brother continuing with the game. Minutes later, Srinivas heard a loud noise and rushed towards the elevator only to see his son’s blood spilled all around the elevator area. The residents passed the information to Saroornagar police who shifted the body to Osmania General Hospital for post mortem. The body was later handed over to Srinivas, and a case of suspicious death was registered based on his complaint. The body was later taken to West Godavari for the last rites.

Cellar lacks safety signs
The G+ 4 apartment, constructed in 2004 and housing over 60 families, has two functional elevators. The cellar which has parking space for over 30 cars does not have any lighting arrangements.
However, there were no safety signs present in the cellar to prevent entry of children or unauthorised person near the hoistway at the basement, which is used mainly for elevator’s maintenance or repair purposes. The SI said the apartment is legal and the elevator was constructed along with it in 2004, and there are no rules as such to check the elevator’s insertion and maintenance.

No laws in place

Despite several incidents in recent times, no laws or rules have been made to check the elevator maintenance in residential and commercial buildings. Even the GHMC
has never bothered to bring up rules to prevent such untoward incidents, for the reasons best known to the administration. In a similar incident on November 17, 2015, a four-year-old girl had died after getting stuck
in the elevator of a private school at Dilsukhnagar in city.