Man ‘slips’ into unguarded drain in Guwahati, dies

Guwahati: A 43-year-old man out for a morning walk died after after he allegedly slipped and fell into an open drain that flows close to the pavement he was walking on in Hatigaon on Thursday.
The deceased, Naren Choudhury, hails from lower Assam’s Dhubri district. He had been staying in a rented house about 200 meters away from the spot where the incident happened.
Buli Choudhury, a family member, said, “Naren had gone for a morning walk at 4.30 am as usual. Nobody knows how he fell into the drain which was full of water as it is the rainy season. The railing on the footpath segregating the drain was removed by the authorities for construction of a guard wall a couple of months ago and the site was not properly barricaded. He might have slipped and fell into the drain,” she added.
Police said Naren’s body was first spotted by locals who informed the police.
On June 11, Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma had directed all the deputy commissioners to ensure that pits dug by various agencies for construction purpose should be filled up or barricaded properly with red flags to avert any fatal road accident. The CM’s instruction came following the death of a Class 11 student who was run over by a bus after she fell off a scooter that skidded due to an obstruction for a pit dug up by the Guwahati Jal Board. The incident took place on June 8.
Following this, the Kamrup (Metro) district administration issued an order with immediate effect and the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) came out with an SOP. But despite this, the incident spot was not barricaded.