Three people including, a contractor, suction vehicle owner and house owner have been booked under The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, after two died in a manhole. A worker whom the contractor had assigned to clean a manhole of a private house at Sonari village in Uran on Monday evening, got suffocated following which the cleaner of the suction vehicle entered the manhole to rescue the worker.
The worker got saved but the cleaner started getting suffocated and to save him, the driver entered. In the whole process, the worker who had entered to clean the manhole, was saved but the driver and cleaner of the suction vehicle, died.
On Monday at around 2 pm, the contractor Vishal Babu Manjule hired a sewage suction truck belonging to Amol Anant Khutle for cleaning the sewage manhole of a house belonging to Kashinath Baburao Tandel in Sonari village of Uran TAluka. “The house was a two floored structure. The sewage manhole was filled and hence Tandel had sought services from Manjule to clean the manhole,” senior police inspector BT Ove from Nhava Sheva Police station said.
The worker who was brought in to enter the manhole, Nilesh Dhotre first entered the manhole but started feeling suffocated immediately. Chandan Jaiswal (23), the cleaner of the suction truck immediately entered the manhole to save Dhotre. Dhotre was pulled out but Jaiswal too started feeling suffocated. Vikas Taak (33), the driver of the suction truck also went inside to save his colleague Jaiswal. He managed to get Jaiswal out but he himself got stuck inside.
“Jaiswal was rushed to hospital in an ambulance but by the time he reached the hospital, he was declared dead on arrival. Meanwhile, a team of fire brigade reached the spot wearing all the safety gears. They entered the manhole and then brought Taak out but he had died inside due to the suffocation. The manhole was very narrow and the worker Dhotre who entered first, was not provided with any safety gear to not get suffocated. Hence, after investigations, we booked the contractor, the truck owner and also the house owner,” Ove added.
The trio were booked under the section 106 (causing death by negligence) of the BNS Act and under The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act.
