Trolled after man slipped into open manhole, BMC to file defamation suit

Taking a swipe at the BMC, the fund manager had tweeted: “If BMC finds my Samsung phone in the drain they can keep it with my compliments.”

Batra in his tweet had also said that the “public should throw some of these BMC guys down these open manholes”. Batra had later deleted the tweet.

The tweets and the criticism reportedly did not go down well with the BMC, especially since the manhole was located on a private premises and not under the jurisdiction of the BMC. Following the incident, the BMC clarified that the manhole was located on a private society and later decided to file a defamation notice against Arora and others, who made fun of the civic body.

Devendra Kumar Jain, ward officer, confirmed that a defamation case will be filed in the matter.

A BMC official said that they had issued a notice to the private society for failing to put a barricade around the manhole during construction work.

The society reportedly undertook chamber repair works on its premises through a private contractor, who left the manhole open.

“Due to the negligence of the private contractor and poor supervision of your staff, the accident occurred and it could have resulted in the death of Mr Samir Arora,” the notice issued by the civic body to the society reads.

A senior civic official, not wishing to be named, said, “On one hand, the incident was sad and reeks of negligence. On the other, it is wrong to blame the civic body for everything wrong in the city and that too without checking facts.”

In August 2017, a manhole left open by locals to drain out rainwater had led to the death of gastroenterologist Dr Deepak Amarapurkar, who fell into it while crossing the area on foot.