Techie dies after car falls into water-filled pit in Greater Noida

A 27-year-old software engineer died after his car went out of control and fell into a 20-foot-deep water-filled pit that was dug for the basement of an under-construction building in Sector 150 of Greater Noida. Following the tragedy, police have filed an FIR for criminal negligence against the developers.

While local residents staged protests alleging negligence and lack of safety measures at the accident-prone site, the police said an FIR has been lodged against two real estate developers in connection with the incident.

The deceased was identified as Yuvraj Mehta, a resident of the Tata Eureka Park society in Sector 150. He was working as a software engineer with a reputed company in Gurugram and was returning home from work when the accident occurred in the early hours of Saturday, police said. In a heartbreaking final phone call to his father, Rajkumar Mehta, Yuvraj pleaded, stating, “Papa, I am stuck. The car has fallen into the drain... please save me, I don’t want to die.”

Despite being an athletic young man, Yuvraj did not know how to swim. He managed to climb onto the roof of his partially submerged car and used his phone’s torch to signal for help. Witnesses and family members have levelled serious allegations of “inaction” against the responding authorities.

According to police at the Knowledge Park police station, information was received around 12.15 am that a car had fallen into a pit dug for the basement of an under-construction building near Sector 150.

A search operation was launched, and the body was recovered later on Saturday morning with the help of teams from the fire department, State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and the local police.

However, Moninder, a delivery agent who claimed to be an eyewitness, alleged that rescue efforts were delayed and said the techie could have been saved if timely action had been taken. He told reporters that he reached the spot around 1.45 am and found rescue personnel hesitant to enter the water due to cold conditions and the presence of iron rods. “I tied a rope around my waist and went into the water myself. I searched for the youth and his car for about 30 minutes,” he claimed.