4-year-old falls into drain in Patna, dies

PATNA: A four-year-old boy died after he accidentally fell into a drain while playing outside his house in Rajiv Nagar here on Monday. The deceased has been identified as Vicky Kumar, the son of Munna Choudhary, a vegetable seller.
The tragedy happened around 2pm on road number 23 in Rajiv Nagar when the child was playing outside his house with the other kids. He slipped into the open portion of the drain. The other two kids started shouting for help. Hearing the noise, some passersby noticed the boys shouting for help. The family members rushed to the spot and managed to pull out the boy from the drain.
The child was rushed to the nearby hospital where he was declared brought dead. The residents blocked Digha road alleging that the child died due to negligence of the civic body and the government. They said drains were open at many places in the surrounding area. They demanded that the drain should be covered to avoid such incident in future.
SHO Neeraj Kumar told TOI that the child died because of drowning in the drain. "Vicky fell into the drain while playing outside his house. Because of small opening in the drain, it took longer time for the family to pull him out. Some work has been going on in the drain under the Namami Gange project," he said. "The postmortem of the deceased was not done as the family members were not ready to hand over the body," he added.
In April, a toddler died after falling into 20 feet deep pit in Patna City, while a 21-year-old died after falling into an open drain in Chowkshikarpur area of Patna City in August.