Hyderabad: 9-yr-old boy drowns in 14-ft-deep pit dug for Metro construction

Hyderabad: Lack of safety measures at a Hyderabad Metro Rail construction site was responsible for the death of a nine-year-old child on Thursday.

Ch. Narasimha drowned in a 14-foot-deep pit filled with rainwater that was dug for construction of a Metro pillar three months ago and left it unattended with no warning sign.  

The Metro Rail management has announced Rs 4 lakh ex gratia for the child’s family. Work on the Metro Rail has been in progress in the Old Gandhi Hospital compound for more than a year now. Three months ago, workers dug a 14-foot deep pit, around 15-foot in diameter. Due to the recent heavy rains and heavy waterlogging in the Bhoiguda railway bridge, water flowed into the pit and filled it as did garbage.

The pit is located in a corner, opposite the Saibaba temple. Though the area is barricaded, there is two-foot gap which people use to reach the shops and the nearby Secunderabad Railway Station instead of taking the longer route by the main road.

‘Close pit’ plea ignored
On Thursday morning, Ch. Narasimha, a Class II student, was playing on the open land along with three other kids, when he fell into the pit and drowned.

His friends started shouting and Metro Rail workers present at the site managed to pull him out but he was declared dead when he was brought to the hospital.

“A few minutes before he drowned, he came to me and took some money for snacks. I thought he went home after that,” his grandmother Laxmi said. His mother thought he was with his grandmother.

The boy’s mother is shocked by his death.

“The pit and lack of safety precautions is not the only problem here. The heavy waterlogging under the railway culvert is also a big concern to hundreds of commuters who pass through it. We have made many representations to authorities, but in vain,” said president of the Saibaba temple board Rapaka Ashok. Residents allege that there is nothing to block the public from entering the area.

The police have registered a case of suspicious death (under 174 of the CrPC) and have started investigating. “On inquiry we found that the kids went to answer nature’s call near the pit and while cleaning himself, he slipped into the pit and drowned,” said Market SI T. Ravi Kiran.

L&T officials refused to comment on the incident. Narsimha was the eldest son of Ch. Jyothi, a tailor. Her husband Srinivas died in December 2015. She lives with her three children and her mother in a hut on the footpath in Monda Market area.