‘Andhera tha… Bus itna yaad hai ki main andar gaya’: Man recalls harrowing death of colleague

Satyendra watched as Ashok’s body was hurriedly loaded into a hospital van as the mortuary hours drew to a close. The van took the body to their home in UP’s Kasganj home.

On Tuesday night, Arvind suffocated to death while cleaning a sewer pipe near a society in Delhi’s Ashok Vihar.

The incident also left three other men — Sonu, Narayan and Naresh — injured, police said. All four were working for Brijgopal Construction Company on a contractual basis, police said.

They were rushed to Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital, where Arvind was declared dead.

“He had a contractor, who would usually get him work. He lived in Kasganj… The contractor would call him if there was work,” said Satyendra.

“This time it was different,” he said.

Before he left home, Ashok had said it was not the contractor who had called. “He got the call directly from the company. It happens sometimes… to save expenses, companies often get in touch with workers directly. I think it was paying him more this time,” Satyendra added.

At Deep Chand Bandhu Hospital, where he was later shifted, Sonu was lying on a stretcher in the general ward. He had an oxygen mask, while a monitor tracked his heart rate.

On Tuesday night though, he had no mask — not even a surgical one which is priced at Rs 20 at medical stores — while cleaning the sewer, he claimed.

“Arey koi mask vask nai hota (There is no mask for us). They call, we go. That’s it.”

“Andhera tha pura andar. Bus itna yaad hai ki main andar gaya. Uske baad kuch nai (It was so dark… I don’t remember anything after I jumped inside the sewer,” said Sonu, having briefly removed the oxygen mask.

His sister, Laxmi, was sitting beside him. Sonu has two sons — one aged four, while the other is just two months old.

Narayan, who is in his mid-30s, is the only one to has recovered so far.

Recalling what transpired, he said Sonu first entered the manhole to clean the sewer pipes. “But he didn’t come out.” After around 15 minutes, he said he entered the sewer halfway but “the smell was so suffocating that I almost fainted”. He pulled himself out.

Then Naresh entered to get Sonu out — neither of them came back.

Narayan said Arvind finally went in. “But he fainted. There was no response from anyone. Just then, a man was passing by on a bike. He had a mask on. He climbed down the sewer, tied a rope to each one of them, and pulled them out.”

Like Sonu, he has been living in Delhi for the past 11 years. “I have two sons — one aged five, another eight. The contractor pays me Rs 34,000 a month. We cannot negotiate much regarding safety measures,” he said.

Naresh is still in the ICU.

Police said a case has been registered for death by negligence, negligent use of machinery leading to danger to life, forging records of public register and also under the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers Act 2013 at Ashok Vihar police station.

“The manager of Brijgopal Construction Company has been called for an inquiry. Sewer cleaning work was going on in the area for the past several days. Safety measures undertaken during the work are being reviewed,” DCP (Northwest) Bhisham Singh said.

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