Three sanitation workers killed, one critical in Ggn

Gurugram: The peril to the life of sanitation workers was again uncovered after a mishap in a private company in Gurugram on Saturday morning that led to the loss of three lives.

The deceased have been identified as Rajkumar, 22, Rinku, 32 and Vinesh Kumar, 35. All three had come to the city from Uttar Pradesh to earn their livelihood.

Their bodies have been sent for post-mortem. Sources indicate that they died instantly after inhaling a poisonous gas in the drain.

In order to save the life of their colleague, Binish who fell into the sewer, the three jumped in and died due to asphyxiation.

Meanwhile, Binish has been admitted to a private hospital in the city and his condition is stated to be critical.

The four used to work at Jay auto components Ltd that has its industrial unit in Sector 37 near Khandsa road. The tragedy occurred at around 11:00 am.

Immediately after the tragedy struck, the police along with the fire department officials rushed to the spot to rescue the workers. However, their effort went in vain as they could only save one out of four people.

"Our team reached the spot and rescued four persons, of which three were declared brought dead by doctors at the hospital," said Ramesh Saini, an official from the Gurugram fire department.

"We are in the process of registering the FIR under suitable sections against the company and the contractor as the relatives of those who died have filed their complaints and have demanded stringent action in this case," said Inspector Ravinder Kumar, spokesperson Gurugram police.

The latest mishap follows after a spate of deaths that have occurred in Delhi-NCR. On September 21, three manual scavengers lost their lives while cleaning a blocked sewer in Sector-110 in Noida. All were between 25 to 30.

Over 10 incidents of sanitation worker deaths were witnessed in the national capital, that led to the Delhi government set up a vigilance committee to prevent such deaths.

Even as the practice of manual scavenging has been made illegal in India since 1993, most of the contractors on the pretext of cutting cost employ contractual workers to undertake such tasks. Their lives are jeopardized on a daily basis as they are not being provided with safety gear like helmets, masks and gloves to protect themselves.