A four-year-old boy who fell into a nearly 50-foot-deep sewer in Delhi’s Ranhola area was found dead after an almost 20-hour rescue operation, with his body recovered about 3.5 km downstream at a water treatment plant in Nilothi, police said.
The child, identified as Imran, lived in Som Bazar Wali Gali in Mohan Garden and had accompanied his mother to Dass Garden Park, according to preliminary information. He reportedly moved towards the sewer alongside a service road to attend to nature’s call and fell through an open manhole that was allegedly covered with a thin fibre sheet.
Police said information about the incident reached Ranhola police station at 3.20pm. Delhi Fire Services personnel and National Disaster Response Force teams joined the search operation. More than 50 personnel were involved, according to a rescuer quoted by Times of India.
The family, however, alleged that the initial search remained focused on the location where the child fell until Wednesday morning. The family said the boy fell at about 3pm, police reached at around 5pm and NDRF personnel arrived between 6pm and 7pm. They alleged that the teams did not initially trace the sewer route leading towards the treatment plant.
A rescuer said the operation was difficult because teams had to open individual manhole covers along the sewer route. Toxic gases made entry hazardous, requiring rescuers to use breathing apparatus sets. Searchlights were used during the night because visibility inside the sewer was extremely poor, he said.
The body was located after the flow of water through the sewer was stopped, a police officer said. The officer added that manholes along the route were the only access points to the underground passage. The remains were taken to Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital for preservation and post-mortem examination.
According to a Delhi Jal Board official, the department received information at 5.22pm from an executive engineer in its maintenance wing that a child had fallen into a manhole of a sewer line in Nangli Vihar. DJB staff reached the site and found police and the NDRF already conducting the rescue operation.
The DJB said the interceptor sewer line passes beneath the closed boundary wall of the Najafgarh Drain, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Irrigation and Flood Control Department. Its officials observed that the manhole cover at the site was damaged. The department also stated that covers installed along the interceptor sewer line are secured with nuts and bolts and cannot ordinarily be removed without appropriate tools.
The department said entry into the stretch had been prohibited by police and that a woman and child had entered the area at about 1.30pm, after which the boy fell into the sewer. The circumstances surrounding the damaged cover, the timing of the response and responsibility for the incident are under investigation.
Police have registered a case under Section 106(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which deals with causing death by negligence. Further investigation will establish the circumstances of the incident and determine responsibility.
