The men were inside a tower crane, 35 feet above the ground, when the hydraulic lift malfunctioned. (Representational image)

Four persons, including a service engineer and three labourers, died while they were working at a Delhi Development Authority (DDA) under-construction site in Narela. Police said the site was being managed by a private company.

According to police, the four men were inside a tower crane machine, 35 feet above the ground, when the incident took place. A senior DDA official said the crane has a hydraulic lift which malfunctioned around 4.30 pm, when routine maintenance work was on. He said a committee comprising two superintending engineers has been formed to look into the incident.

DCP (Rohini) Rajneesh Gupta identified the dead as service engineer Pramod (30); and labourers Sonu (27) from UP; Sonu (25) from Bihar; and Rajkumar (25) from Jharkhand.

The four were taken to Satyawadi Raja Harish Chandra Hospital, where they were declared brought dead, police said. The private company, identified by the DCP as M/s B.G. Shirke, could not be reached for a comment.

Police have registered a case under IPC sections 287 (negligent conduct with respect to machinery) and 304-(a) (death by negligence), but are yet to comment on whether safety precautions were followed.

“The under-construction site was run by a private company. Police are trying to ascertain if there were safety violations. It will be clear after a mechanical inspection as to what happened,” said an officer.

The Indian Express spoke to families of two labourers who lost their lives. They claimed that they, too, worked at the site, but were not there when the accident took place. The families also claimed workers were not provided safety equipment and sometimes maintenance staff, who had to stand on platforms 35 feet high, were not provided safety belts.

“Sonu has been working there for the past six months. When he died, I was at another site. I have also worked with the company… it is difficult working there. Most men are paid a paltry sum for 12 hours of work; sometimes they made us work overtime,” his relative Arjit alleged. Workers are paid Rs 14,000 a month.

Another relative of a labourer, who did not wish to be identified, but said he operated a crane at the site for a few months, alleged: “There are two platforms at the tower crane and two maintenance staffers stand on it with hammers, without safety belts. Sometimes, the maintenance operator is given a safety belt, which locks if he falls, but we aren’t always given that.”

The DDA official said, “The contractor will have to provide due compensation. If lapses are found on his part, action will be taken by both DDA and police.”