New Delhi: Four young men, all in their 20s, died after inhaling toxic gases while cleaning a private sewage plant in Mumbai’s Virar. Two others who went looking for them also complained of uneasiness and were admitted to a hospital.
The deceased Shubham Parkar (28), Amol Ghatale (27), Nikhil Ghatale (24) and Sagar Tendulkar (29) were declared brought dead by the time they were shifted to the hospital.
According to the police, the sewage plant in question catered to 142 buildings under the Sandipani project in Global City, Virar West. Four of them climbed down into 30-foot-deep sewage plant at around 11:30 am on Tuesday without safety gear. They had been working with Ploycom, the firm that had been awarded the contract for the maintenance of the plant, for the last one year.
“The men must have died of suffocation due to chemicals in the sewage plant,” said Vijay Patil, senior police inspector of Arnala police station, according to the Hindustan Times.
Soon after residents alerted the authorities, police and fire brigade rushed to the spot, removed the bodies and rushed them to Virar municipal hospital, where they were declared brought dead.
Meanwhile, the police booked Mahadev Kupte, a supervisor with Polycom, on charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder. “We are investigating further if the contractor followed all the necessary protocols,” said Patil.
On the other hand, the father of Sagar Tendulkar, one of the deceased, dismissed the police’s version that the four died of suffocation. He said the deceased men were friends and they lived in Bhawkhalpada and Dongarpada in Virar East. According to him, his son, an electrician, died of electrocution.
“My son was an electrician. He had quit his job with the firm in November, but he went to the site on Tuesday as he got a call from his friends,” Sunil Tendulkar said. “They are saying he suffocated to death. But the marks on his body clearly indicate that he was electrocuted.”