A 35-year-old cab driver was electrocuted after the iron rod he was carrying touched an overhead high tension electric wire that was hanging low over his two-storey house.
The incident occurred on Wednesday morning in North-East Delhi’s Harsh Vihar area, where the deceased Vinod Singh, lived with his familyin Harijan Colony near Gagan Cinema.
Residents of the area alleged that low overhead high tension wires pose a real threat to lives, yet complaints to the power department have fallen on deaf ears.
“The incident took place around 10 am when the victim’s wife told him to get an iron rod to unblock the bathroom drain. Singh went to the terrace of his two storey house to get the rod. However, as he was walking across the terrace with the rod in his hand, the other end of the rod accidentally touched the 11,000 volt overhead electric wire that was hanging over the terrace. Vinod was thrown to the ground floor from the terrace by the jolt,” a senior police officer said.
His younger brother, Surender saw him lying on the ground floor in an unconscious condition and took him to the Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital where he was declared brought dead.
After medico-legal formalities, the body was handed over to the family. Police said Singh, who was working with a private company as a cab driver, is survived by his wife, an eight-year-old son and a four-year-old daughter. His father, a retired MCD employee is suffering from depression.
“This is the fourth such incident in the last three years. Several times, we had complained about this high tension wire to the power department and the area MlA, but no one bothered to take note of our complaints. last time, we checked with them, they told us that the file is pending with local authorities,” Surender alleged.