Manhole death: FIR against Municipal Corporation Gurgaon official after a month

GURGAON: An MCG official was booked on Monday for causing death by negligence after a complaint from the family of a 30-year-old man who was found dead in an open manhole along the Sohna road in Badshapur last month.
Vikas Singh, the deceased’s brother, told police that he talked to his brother last on April 14.
“My brother, Dinesh Kumar, was a cab driver and both of us stayed in a rented house in the Housing Board Colony of Tigra village in Sector 57. On April 14, I called him in the evening when he said he was on his way home after work,” Singh said, adding that after he didn’t return for long, he called him back but his phone was switched off. The brothers are from Uttar Pradesh’s Mathura.
“I thought he might have stayed to meet a friend, but when his phone remained off till after some time, I started searching for him. On April 18, I filed a missing person’s report at Sector 56 police station and on April 21, Badshapur police called me to inform that a body has been recovered from an open manhole. I identified that it was my brother’s body. When he was walking back home, he fell into a 10ft deep open manhole and died,” Vikas said.
Cops said that Kumar had fallen in the open manhole on April 14 night, but nobody was around at that time and therefore he could not be rescued immediately.
After shopkeepers in the neighbourhood noticed some foul smell coming out of the manhole, they informed the police.
Subsequently, his highly decomposed body was taken out with the help of earthmovers and was sent for postmortem.
Vikas said that MCG is responsible for his brother’s death and that action should be taken against the official concerned.
“The body was in a highly decomposed condition. During the search, we recovered a laptop bag in the hand of the deceased. There was also a mobile phone and a power bank inside of the laptop bag. Later, as per a document found in the bag, the deceased was identified and his brother was informed. Initial investigation suggested that the man was in an inebriated condition and while walking, he fell inside of the sewage line and died due to head injuries,” Madan Lal, SHO, Badshapur said.
An FIR was then registered against an unidentified MCG official under Section 304A (causing death by negligence). “We have started an investigation into the matter and the guilty will be punished,” the SHO said.