A day after four sanitation workers died of asphyxiation while cleaning a septic tank in South Delhi’s Ghitorni area on Saturday, the Delhi Police on Sunday claimed to have arrested two persons.
Chinmoy Biswal, Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police 1 (South) said, “Niranjan Singh (42), supervisor in Mehta Farm, and Ridhipal (47), gardener in Mehta Farm were arrested in connection with deaths of four sanitation workers.”
Biswal said Niranjan, who had called deceased Swarn Singh for tank cleaning on instruction of his owner, had insisted the sanitation workers to enter in the pit for cleaning without any safety gears.
Ridhipal, who was also present at the spot at the time of incident, supported Niranjan in his bid to force the workers to enter the tank. Both collectively failed to ensure the safety of the workers, Biswal added.
On Saturday morning, around 11 am, five men had gone down to clean the tank at an under-construction building in the area but did not come out for long.
They were later pulled out in unconscious state by fire department personnel after an hour-long operation. It is suspected that they inhaled toxic gases inside the tank. Three of them were taken to a private hospital, while the other two were taken to the AIIMS Trauma Centre and the Safdarjung Hospital. Four workers, identified as Swarn Singh (45), Dipu (28), Anil (23) and Balwinder (32), were declared brought dead. Jaspal (22), Swarn Singh’s son, is currently undergoing treatment at private hospital.
Police said that Swarn Singh was a contractor who dealt with water boring work, whereas the others who died were labourers. They had been called to clean the tank since it was emanating foul smell, police added.
A labourer, lokesh, who had accompanied Swarn Singh and others, said that they had been instructed by Niranjan Singh to clean the tank. He told police that initially Anil went inside the tank. After some time when they called out to him, he did not respond and Billu went inside to check on him. When Billu did not return, Dipu and Swarn Singh entered the tank. When all them also did not respond, Jaspal stepped into the tank, police said. lokesh sensed something amiss and with the help of a rope, he managed to pull out Jaspal.
later, police and the fire department were alerted and they pulled out the other wokers stuck inside the tank. All five are residents of Ambedkar Colony in Chhattarpur.