In a tragic incident, an eleven-year-old girl died after falling into the drain on Friday night at the front of Pinnacle tower in Ahinsa Khand II, Indirapuram
National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) recovered her body today at 12:20 pm after an operation of over 13 hours. The body was found twenty meters away from the point where the girl fell.
The deceased, Priyanka was heading home with her father from Dussehra Mela ground when around 10:30 pm, the incident occurred.
“To escape the crowd on the road, she playfully stepped onto the parapet erected before the roadside drain. She lost her balance and fell into the drain,” Santosh, father of the deceased said.
Circle Officer Ravi Kumar said that police received information around 10:45 pm and called the NDRF team on the spot.
Santosh works at a factory in Noida while mother Radha Rani works as a domestic help in Rail Vihar and 555 Niti Mitra society in Indirapuram. The family lives in Kanawani basti and had moved in the city four months ago from their village in Hardoi district of Uttar Pradesh. The couple has four kids.
Shri Niwas, Assistant Commandant of NDRF, told City Spidey that 12 deep divers were deployed in the mission.
Uncovered drain
Alok Kumar, President of Federation of Apartments Owners Association (FedAOA) opined that the incident could have been avoided if the drain was covered.
“For last one year, the federation is corresponding Ghaziabad Development Authority through emails, letters and verbally to cover the drain adequately, but the authority never paid heed towards our multiple requests,” Alok Kumar said.
Neeraj Kumar Dwiwedi, Nayab Tehseeldar who was present at the spot also said the gap between the wall and pipe which should have been covered through the grills by GDA.
When City Spidey asked Assistant Engineer Vijay Pratap Yadav why the gap was not covered, he vaguely said that it was planned but the congestion of electricity cables underground made it risky to hold slab onto them.
Uncleaned drain
Besides, the unkempt condition of the drain also proved fatal for the child. Niwas said that divers dived 7-8 feet deep in the drain out of which, 5 feet was clogged entirely with solid trash like bottles, wrappers, polythene etc.
Niwas also said that the life of a victim could be saved it is rescued within 30 minutes of the fall. “We promptly rushed to the spot but the drain was so clogged that our divers could not cut through it immediately, he added.
“This is the reason why it took us over 13 hours to recover the body,” he further said.
When asked why drains were not cleaned, Yadav blamed the societies. “Residential societies have constructed ramps over the drain which makes cleaning difficult for us,” he said.
He also said that societies also do not allow GDA officials to break ramps and start cleaning.
Kumar termed Yadav’s explanation as “simply an excuse”. “Even if the builders have constructed concrete ramps over the drains, it is the duty of GDA to break them and clean the drain. They cannot get away like that,” he said.
“Had it been covered properly, an innocent life would have saved,” he added.
The civic authority and district administration has come into action after the tragic incident of the death of an eleven years old girl.
GDA VC Kanchan Verma has formed a three-member committee to probe the incident. Verma chose not to comment on the incident and only informed about the committee. “I will comment once I see the report which the committee would file,” she said.
The committee will table their finding to Verma on Monday.
The committee will be headed by VK Singh, Officer on Special Duty (OSD) of GDA. Singh informed City Spidey that apart from him, SK Chauhan, an Assistant Engineer of Division 3 and SK Sinha, Executive Engineer of Divison 8 are on the committee.
Ritu Maheshwari, DM Ghaziabad has also asked SDM Vivek Mishra to probe the matter and file the report within a week’s time.
Maheshwari said that a separate inquiry under SDM Mishra will be initiated to get the fair picture of the incident.
