Hyderabad: A daily-wage worker and his employer died in a manhole in LB Nagar on Friday.
The police said that RTC conductor M. Mohan Rao, 54, hired V. Balaiah, 50, to clear a blockage in a sewage drain. Balaiah entered a manhole with the help of a ladder provided by Mohan and began cleaning it. Meanwhile, Mohan monitored the activity from above. After a few minutes, Mohan stopped receiving responses from Balaiah, and so he decided to enter the manhole by himself.
“Both of them got trapped in the manhole. They could have died of asphyxiation. The investigation will proceed based on the autopsy report,” said P. Kasi Reddy, inspector of LB Nagar.
Fire personnel were called to recover the bodies from the 18-foot deep manhole.
A case of suspicious death has been registered by the police. Meanwhile, Balaiah’s family blames Mohan for his death.
“He was sitting at home when Mohan had called him for this work. Though he was not willing to go, Mohan forced him,” said Balaiah’s wife, Tirup-athamma. Balaiah is survived by a wife and a son, Mallesh. Mohan is also survived by a wife, Vijayalakshmi, and a son, Venkatesh.
