In the third such incident in two weeks, seven-year-old Sumit Jaiswar fell into a drain that meets Mithi river, in Dharavi on Monday.
Sumit and his brother Amit (6) had told their mother they were going to the creek-side to play, when Sumit slipped through the mud into one of the holes dug into the nullah.
The incident occurred around 3 p.m. and locals gathered at the site and attempted to pull the boy out.
Santosh Raghunath Shinde, who was working nearby, had jumped in the nullah to rescue the boy.
“I was filling sand when I saw a huge crowd gathered near the nullah. When I found out that Sumit had fallen, I jumped in to rescue him as I thought he had fallen at that time only,” Mr. Shinde said.
“I was at home when my younger son, Amit, ran to me and said his brother had slipped and fallen. I immediately rushed to find him and saw people at the site trying to rescue him,” Seema Jaiswar, Sumit’s mother said.
When the crowd finally managed to pull the boy out of the nullah, Ms. Jaiswar rushed him to Sion Hospital, where he was declared dead before arrival.
Sumit, who studies in the Kala Killa Marathi Municipal School, had decided to skip school as one his friends wasn’t going either. His brother and he were searching for crabs when he slipped and fell.
Their neighbour Aman Gupta said, “Children generally go out to collect glass bottles to sell them. People had gone out for work, otherwise, someone would’ve stopped them when they saw them going towards the nullah.”
Last week, 18-month-old Divyansh Singh fell into a nullah in Goregaon. While search for his body is still on, in another incident, a 12-year-old fell into a pit dug for the Mumbai coastal road in Worli on July 12.