Two held in asphyxiation case at Fort St. George

Personnel from the Fort police station on Saturday arrested two persons from a private contract firm in connection with the asphyxiation of two workers who were cleaning a sewage tank located behind the military campus inside Fort St. George, which houses the Tamil Nadu Secretariat complex.

On Friday, five workers, all residents of Annai Sathiya Nagar, were employed by private contract firm Srital Systems to clean a sewage tank. At 11 a.m., one of the workers K. Santhosh, 35, collapsed after inhaling poisonous gases and co-worker K. Raja, 40, who tried to rescue him, also fell unconscious.

Another person, Venkatesh, managed to get out of the tank after sensing something was wrong along with two others, Panneerselvam and Manivannan, who suffered discomfort. The staff on the campus pulled out the duo and rushed them to the Military Hospital and then to the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, where Raja and Santhosh were declared dead due to asphyxiation, police said.

Based on a complaint from the wife of one of the deceased, the police booked a case against S. Rajiv, 34, of Perambur, who runs the firm, and M. Gopikannan, 30, a manager of the firm, under Section 304(i) (Culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and provisions of The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, and The Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. They were remanded in judicial custody.