Two Dalit youths died of suffocation inside a sewer manhole in Ahmedabad’s Bopal area on 5 September. The victims, 20-year-old Vikas Lal Bahadur Kori and 21-year-old Kanhaiyalal Khushiram Kori, had gone inside the sewer to clean it when poisonous gases knocked them unconscious. Both were later declared dead at a hospital.
Initially, police had arrested only the labour contractor. But now, after expanding the investigation, Ahmedabad Rural Police have named the site contractor and site engineer as accused as well. “We have already arrested Mukeshkumar Someshwar Adalat Thakur, the labour contractor. Site contractor Saurabh Panchal and site engineer Jayanil have also been made accused and will be arrested soon,” said Tapasin Dodiya, Deputy Superintendent of Police, SC/ST Cell.
The case was registered after a complaint by Lal Bahadur Kori, father of Vikas. Lal Bahadur, who hails from Amethi in Uttar Pradesh, said his son had been working as a plumber in Ahmedabad for three years. “On September 6, I got a call from my relative Anish, who told me Vikas had fainted while cleaning a sewer. He assured me Vikas was being treated and would be sent home in an ambulance. But the next day when the ambulance arrived, it was carrying my son’s dead body,” Lal Bahadur said in his complaint.
According to the FIR, on the day of the incident, contractor Thakur brought a pressure machine and asked Vikas to get inside the gutter near ‘The Garden Bungalows’ to clean it. He was not given any safety equipment. Vikas fell unconscious due to toxic gas, and his friend Kanhaiyalal went inside to save him but also collapsed. Firefighters later pulled them out and rushed them to hospital, where doctors declared Kanhaiyalal dead at 3:40 pm and Vikas at 10:40 pm.
“The two youths were first asked to work on a private sewer line at a construction site. Later, they were told to connect it to the municipal sewer line, which was clogged due to rain. It was during this task that the accident happened,” said DySP Dodiya.
Police have booked the accused under provisions of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, endangering human life, and under the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act. They are also charged under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
Activists have demanded strict accountability. “The law is quite clear that those responsible for the deaths of workers, including government officials in charge, must be held accountable,” said Parshottam Vaghela of Human Dignity, an NGO that works on such cases.
