Four-year-old falls into lift pit, crushed to death in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: A four-year-old boy fell off a malfunctioning lift in his residential complex into the pit, following which he was crushed and died during treatment on Tuesday morning, in an incident at a newly constructed apartment building in RTC Colony of LB Nagar.

The boy, Bollikonda Akshay Kumar, son of the security guard, climbed to the second floor of Uppala Residency Apartments after having his breakfast at 8.10 a.m. and took the lift to come down. The lift halted halfway, near the first floor, following which the boy pushed the grille doors and fell into the pit, the police said.

LB Nagar B. Anji Reddy said, “We did not want to show the body to the parents as they were in deep shock. A case of death due to negligence and suspicious death was registered and the boy was shifted to the Osmania General Hospital for a post-mortem examination. We are investigating the case and trying to identify the person who installed the lift.”

A police source said: “There is a technical problem with the lift. It has not been maintained properly and no service has been done for the past five months.”

Recollecting the incident, the boy’s father, Bollikonda Nagaraju, said: “We heard Akshay’s scream. I alerted my wife Anuradha, who was working in an apartment on the second floor. We ran to the first floor, where the grills were half opened. I peeped into the lift pit to find my son bleeding.”

“I switched off the main power and along with my wife, went into the lift pit. By then, Akshay was bleeding from his head and was unconscious,” he said.

They rushed him to a private hospital in the vicinity, where he died during treatment at around 1 p.m.

“We were not aware nor did the residents of the apartment inform us that there was a technical problem with the lift. Otherwise, we would not have allowed Akshay into it,” Anuradha said.

The police said that the couple had moved to the city around 20 days back from Dharmapuri village in Suryapet. Nagaraju was employed as the security guard, while Anuradha worked as a domestic help.