Overview

• Two men—32-year-old contractor Subhash and 22-year-old labourer Pradeep—succumbed to toxic gases after falling into a 7-foot-deep septic tank at an under-construction site in Qutub Vihar on July 26.
• Delhi Police registered a case under Section 106(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita for causing death by negligence and dispatched a forensic team to inspect the premises.
• Preliminary enquiries indicate the victims were dismantling scaffolding inside the tank when they were exposed to sealed-chamber fumes without protective equipment.
• Investigators have identified material supplier Sujith Jha as the contractor who hired Subhash and are probing safety protocol failures to assign accountability.
• The tragedy underscores Delhi’s ongoing manual scavenging crisis, which has recorded six sewer-related deaths since May last year and 122 fatalities statewide since 1993 according to the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis.