A four-and-a-half-year-old girl fell into an open manhole near the main gate of Supertech Capetown, a residential society in Sector 74, Noida, today morning.
The girl, identified as Srisha Mehra, is a student of The Manthan School in Sector 78, and lives in CV5 tower of the society. Noida News
In the words of her mother, Sukriti Mehra: “At around 7.30 am, we were waiting for the school bus to arrive and Srisha was playing with her friends. There was an open manhole just a few steps away. My daughter while playing took a couple of steps back and fell right into the manhole. But thankfully, I was holding her hand. So, her head was out, while her entire body was inside the manhole. Then some people rushed forward to rescue her. If I had not been holding her hand, we could have lost her today.”
Srisha’s father, Ashish Mehra, added, "The builder also uses this stretch for illegal parking for outsiders. When she was playing, a driver was honking for a spot and that startled my girl and she stepped back to fall into the manhole."
The girl was rushed to a nearby hospital, and the doctors have advised two weeks’ bed rest.
The father also told City Spidey that none of the security guards came to the rescue of his daughter — a resident and others came forward to help.
But here's what Rajkumar Malik, a security guard, had to say: “As I was coming for duty, I saw that lots of people gathered at the spot. When I heard that they were trying to save a girl who had fallen into the manhole, I rushed inside to call the other guards for help.”
“The manhole is about 18-ft deep. There are around 12 manholes on the same stretch. Noida Authority should cover these all manholes, and the developer should also come forward to do something about the situation,” the father said.
RK Mishra, additional CEO of Noida Authority, came to know of the incident through City Spidey and sent a team at the site to cover all the open manholes in the sector.
The father also submitted a written complaint against Noida Authority, the builder and the security agency at Sector-49 police station. An FIR has also been registered against Noida Authority and the builder. A team from the police station is investigating the matter.
