According to police and locals, the telecom company recently shifted its office from Bawana to Sanjay Gandhi Transport Nagar, and the wires were being shifted as a result. (ANI) A day after four men died inside a sewer in Outer Delhi’s Sanjay Gandhi Transport Nagar – three of them while laying cables for MTNL and a fourth while trying to save them – locals said work had been going on there for almost a month.
Akshay Kumar (55), a shopkeeper in the area, said he and his sons were standing nearby when they saw the men climbing down the sewer. “The sewer had toxic water that they would pump out every day before laying wires. The telecom company recently opened their office here. On Tuesday, we saw that one of the workers first fell into the sewer. The other worker then contacted their contractor Suraj Sahni for help, who also went down but all three were trapped. The autorickshaw driver also went in to help but never came back. We called the police but rescue work began late as excavators took time to arrive. Today, the telecom company didn’t open their office.”
The Delhi Police, however, said the SHO and beat staff immediately reached the spot and started rescue work.
According to police and locals, the telecom company recently shifted its office from Bawana to Sanjay Gandhi Transport Nagar, and the wires were being shifted as a result.
tried reaching the telecom provider’s officials over message and phone but did not receive a response. The office on Bawana main road was found locked.
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) meanwhile issued notices to the Chief Secretary, Government of NCT of Delhi, Commissioner of Police, Delhi and the Chairman, MTNL, seeking a detailed report within four weeks.
The Commission “expressed concern that despite there being laws, Supreme Court judgements and its own interventions to provide safety equipment to the workers, poor people are dying while working in sewer lines, which is completely unwarranted”.
The first body was pulled out around 12.30 am Tuesday night. For more than an hour, officials contemplated sending a diver in. With a large amount of methane and chlorine fumes built up inside, they decided against it, and a larger hole was drilled for retrieving the bodies.
Locals and officials watched in anticipation as two machines drilled holes into the stone and iron mesh structure of the manhole. Once the hole was around 6-feet wide, a diver went in and spotted the bodies floating.
The NDRF and DFS teams said the rescue operations took time because of the toxic fumes.
“We arrived with excavators and fire tenders. We tried to get a rope inside and climb down but the diver couldn’t breathe. We had to dig out the manhole and also shut down electricity. At 12-1 am, we made enough space for men to enter. The sewer had iron mesh and the men were stuck under it” said a DFS official.
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