On Sundays, the streets of Rao Vihar in Outer Delhi’s Nangloi usually teem with locals flocking to the weekly market. The biggest draw is always the pickles and long queues are a common sight, with people eager to grab a Rs-200 deal, a steal compared to branded jars.
This Sunday, however, most of the pickle stalls were shut while the small pickle factories sat behind rusted locks. The neighbourhood had a grim reason to go quiet.
Just a few hundred metres from the bustling market stalls, stands a unit tucked inside a residential building. On Saturday evening, it witnessed a double tragedy. The owner, 60-year-old Anil, and his 32-year-old son, Neeraj, died after falling into a 10-foot fermentation well.
In Nangloi, the craft of pickling still follows age-old traditions. Large, deep wells are used for months-long fermentation processes.
According to the police, Anil and Neeraj were trying to save a labourer who fell unconscious after entering the well. Police said there were four to five such wells in the factory.
The men were eventually pulled out by Anil’s brother, Subhash, with the help of local residents. While the labourer survived, Anil and his son did not.
“This is such a hard time for all of us. It’s very difficult. Only we know what we are going through. I hope no one has to go through this ever. I would not wish this sadness upon my worst enemy,” Subhash said as he teared up. Anil’s relatives were seen outside their residence Sunday, staring at the locked factory.
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Anil’s pickles were a favourite in Rao Vihar for decades.
In the locality, The Indian Express saw at least four such pickle manufacturing factories. As per police sources, there are no machineries and about a dozen are employed in these units who do everything manually.
In front of one such factory resides 50-year-old Bhagwant Prajapati. “I’ve been living here for almost two decades. I have stopped eating pickles. I sometimes take a look inside. The conditions here are so unhygienic. The smell at night is pungent. But we have gotten used to it now,” he said.
“There are two other small factories in this lane. Earlier, I couldn’t sleep at night due to the noise,” Prajapati added.
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According to sources, police are yet to ascertain what led to the deaths and are awaiting the post-mortem and viscera reports. They said prima facie, it is suspected that the men had inhaled some gas inside the well.
On any other Sunday, shopkeepers would be seen restocking. This week, most shutters stayed down and the few who opened shops hardly got any customer.
“This is very unfortunate. Par honi ko kaun rok sakta hai? Inke saath saalo se deal kar rahe the hum (Who can stop what is destined to happen? I had been doing business with them for years),” said one of the shopkeepers.
Nirbhay Thakur is a Senior Correspondent with The Indian Express who primarily covers district courts in Delhi and has reported on the trials of many high-profile cases since 2023.
Professional Background
Education: Nirbhay is an economics graduate from Delhi University.
Beats: His reporting spans the trial courts, and he occasionally interviews ambassadors and has a keen interest in doing data stories.
Specializations: He has a specific interest in data stories related to courts.
Core Strength: Nirbhay is known for tracking long-running legal sagas and providing meticulous updates on high-profile criminal trials.
Recent notable articles
In 2025, he has written long form articles and two investigations. Along with breaking many court stories, he has also done various exclusive stories.
1) A long form on Surender Koli, accused in the Nithari serial killings of 2006. He was acquitted after spending 2 decades in jail. was a branded man. Deemed the “cannibal" who allegedly lured children to his employer’s house in Noida, murdered them, and “ate their flesh” – his actions cited were cited as evidence of human depravity at its worst. However, the SC acquitted him finding various lapses in the investigation. The Indian Express spoke to his lawyers and traced the 2 decades journey.
2) For decades, the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has been at the forefront of the Government’s national rankings, placed at No. 2 over the past two years alone. It has also been the crucible of campus activism, its protests often spilling into national debates, its student leaders going on to become the faces and voices of political parties of all hues and thoughts. The Indian Express looked at all court cases spanning over two decades and did an investigation.
3) Investigation on the 700 Delhi riots cases. The Indian Express found that in 17 of 93 acquittals (which amounted to 85% of the decided cases) in Delhi riots cases, courts red-flag ‘fabricated’ evidence and pulled up the police.
Signature Style
Nirbhay’s writing is characterized by its procedural depth. He excels at summarizing 400-page chargesheets and complex court orders into digestible news for the general public.
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