According to the police, he slipped from the wooden plank placed over the drain in front of a liquor shop near Divyansh Pratham, a high rise in Indirapuram. Six months back, an 8-year-old girl had died after falling into the same drain.
Almost six months after an 8-year-old girl had died after accidentally falling into an open drain in Indirapuram, the same drain has claimed yet another life.
A 26-year-old man died after falling into the drain on Friday. The deceased was walking over the wooden plank placed over the drain in front of a liquor shop – adjacent to Divyansh Pratham, a high rise in Indirapuram – when he accidentally slipped and fell into the drain, police told.
Police has identified the deceased as Amit Kumar, a native of Hardoi, Uttar Pradesh. Kumar worked as a tailor in a garment company based in Delhi. For the past two years, he was living in Delhi. “He had come to Indirapuram to meet his elder brother and other relatives on Friday,” police said.
The incident occurred at around 1 pm when Kumar was walking over a wooden plank placed over the drain after buying a bottle of liquor from the shop.
“Police pulled out the man from drain with the help of fire department and took him to a nearby hospital where doctors declared him brought dead. The body was later sent for autopsy and its report is awaited,” said Sandeep Kumar Singh, SHO Indirapuram.
Prima facie investigation by police revealed that Kumar was not drunk when the incident happened. He was accompanied by his friend who was waiting for him on the roadside, police added.
Tragedy in waiting?
The tragedy occurred almost six months after an 8-year-old girl had lost her life after slipping into an uncovered portion of the same drain in front of Pinnacle Tower, which is hardly 500 meters away from the spot where Kumar fell. Similar to the earlier case, the drain wasn’t covered here as well.
“Ghaziabad Development Authority did not learn anything from the previous tragedy. It seems that GDA was waiting for something like this to happen,” said Alok Kumar, president of Indirapuram-based Federation of Apartments Owners Association (FedAOA).
The residents living nearby the spot also seemed disgruntled with GDA's apathy in covering the drain running parallel to Mohan Nagar Link Road.
“We had written to district administration and GDA several times about the threat posed by this uncovered drain but they never paid heed to our concerns. This could have happened to even the residents of our society. Sadly, a young man had to lose his life because of their (GDA) ignorance,” said Kapil Tyagi, secretary of AOA of Divyansh Pratham.
Liquor shop irks residents
Meanwhile, the residents of Divyansh Pratham are also disturbed with the presence of liquor shop in their vicinity.
“As the shop is just next to our society, people park their vehicles in front of the society gate and consume liquor openly. They also get argumentative and often fight with security guards of our society when asked to move away from the gates,” Tyagi said.
"They harass female residents of our society," Tyagi added saying that he had escalated these concerns to the excise department, district administration and police, but none of them took any action.
“Even police told us that they can't do anything in the matter whenever we complained,” claimed Tyagi.
However, Kanawani police post is barely a few metres away from the liquor shop and the society.
Meanwhile, commenting on the situation Alok Kumar said that according to the Supreme Court guidelines, no liquor shop can be given a license in close proximity to a place of public resort, school, hospital, place of worship, factory or at the entrance of a market or residential colony. “Federation has written several letters to the district administration and GDA to shut the liquor shop adjacent to the Divyansh Pratham but our multiple requests have fallen on deaf ears of the system,” he claimed.
City Spidey tried to contact chief of GDA (Indirapuram zone), RP Singh, but our repeated calls and messages went unanswered.
However, excise inspector Mubarak Ali said that he will investigate the matter.
