‘He was to reach home in 10 mins, we searched many areas’: Brother of man who fell to death in Delhi Jal Board pit

Unanswered calls prompts frantic search

Around 12.30 am, after repeated unanswered calls, Karan said he and his father, along with some of Kamal’s friends, went looking for him.

“We first went to the Vikaspuri police station and told the officers that my brother was missing. They said that as we last spoke to him when he was in Janakpuri, we should go there. So, we went to Janakpuri,” Karan said.

Police said that around 2.30 am, when Karan reached Janakpuri police station, he was shown multiple medico-legal case records of unidentified deceased persons to check if anyone among them was Kamal.

“We checked Kamal’s last known location. It showed a 200-m radius around the District Centre area. We searched a park parallel to the accident site. However, since the road had already been barricaded due to excavation work, we did not go there… Work was going on various parts of the road,” a police officer involved in the search operation said.

“We visited multiple police stations and searched areas like Vikaspuri, Sagarpur, and Rohini. If the police had started searching in Vikaspuri earlier, my brother could have been saved,” Karan said.

The pit, dug on a service road between Joginder Singh Marg and the boundary wall of the Andhra Education Society School on Wednesday, was part of a DJB project to lay an underground pipeline. On Friday, barricades could be found 60 to 100 m on either side of the pit.

Another pit had also been dug further down the service road, while two additional sections had been barricaded by the DJB for months, said police.

“A part of the service road, which included the accident site, was the only area open for movement until Wednesday, when the pit was dug. Vehicles used this road to go towards Joginder Singh Marg in order to bypass the construction zone,” the officer said.

“About 24 hours before the incident, this section which was used by commuters was also dug up, and diversion boards placed at the start of the road,” the officer added.

No CCTV footage

Police said no CCTV camera footage of Kamal entering the road or the accident itself has been recovered so far.

On Friday morning, a woman who had come to drop her child at a nearby school noticed a man lying face down inside the pit with a motorcycle. Kamal was still wearing his helmet, and most of his belongings were found intact.

“Around 8 am, a PCR call was received by Janakpuri police station. Staff from the police station reached the spot and found the man unconscious. A motorcycle was also found inside the pit,” DCP (West) Darade Sharad Bhaskar said.

“We are questioning an eyewitness who claims to have seen the accident taking place, as well as a watchman from a nearby residential society. It appears that Kamal fell into the pit between 12 am and 12.15 am,” a senior police officer said.

Karan said that he, Kamal, and their elder brother Mayank lived in Kailaspuri, a colony in Southwest Delhi’s Palam, along with their parents. While the father, Naresh Chand, is a priest, Kamal worked as a telecaller at an HDFC Bank branch in Rohini’s Sector 10.