Two brothers, aged 3 and 5, die after falling into open manhole in Haryana's Yamunanagar

New Delhi: Negligence on the part of civic authorities claimed the lives of two innocent boys in Haryana today. The incident has come to light from Yamunanagar where 3-year-old Akash and 5-year-old Daksh died after falling into an open manhole on Friday. Preliminary reports suggest that the children, both brothers, were playing outside their home when they fell into the open manhole.

This is not the first time brazen civic apathy has led to the loss of life in and around the national capital region. Just this week, a 10-month-old girl died after she fell into an open manhole in Gurugram's Sector 31. Reports suggest that the child was playing with her brother when she crawled near the uncovered manhole and fell into it. Family members rushed to her rescue but failed to save her despite their best efforts.

At the time, locals blamed the Gurugram civic authority for failing to cover the manhole. However, the child's grieving family left for their hometown in Rajasthan without even filing a police complaint. Her father was a daily wager who told mediapersons that by the time he pulled his infant daughter out of the manhole, she had died. Meanwhile, other residents took special note of the incident and one member of the Resident Welfare Association (RWA) of Sector 31 even claimed that no such unfortunate incident might have taken place if the civic body would have done its job.

In April of this year, a four-year-old girl was rescued within 15 minutes of her falling into an open manhole in Hyderabad's Gowliguda area. The manhole was reportedly 12 feet deep, said the girl's family members who also claimed that she fell while playing with her sister and two of her friends.

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A similar incident had come to light from the city of Mumbai in 2017 when a renowned doctor died after falling into an open manhole during a deluge. Dr Deepak Amrapurkar's death triggered massive outrage by locals who blamed the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for failing in its job to safeguard the citizens against unrelenting rains despite being the country's richest civic body. The Municipal Commissioner at the time had famously said that many manhole covers were opened illegally by "anxious people" which led to the tragic death of Dr Amrapurkar. Just recently, the civic body suggested that there are over 8,000 open manholes across Mumbai. A senior official said that war officers have now been instructed to inspect open manholes in their areas at least twice a week. Corporators and district-level officers have also been asked to accompany the officials during these visits.