CHENNAI: Two days after a 10-year-old boy fell from an escalator in a shopping mall at Royapettah, he succumbed to his injuries in the hospital on Friday. The CCTV footage available to reporters on Sunday showed S Naveen with his back bag falling down on the floor.
The police said a strap from the bag got mangled with the escalator’s handle and Naveen was desperately trying to pull it out when the accident took place on Tuesday.
“He had taken the escalator from the second floor to reach the third floor. All along he was trying to pull the bag out. As it reached the third floor, the bag got released suddenly and the boy was thrown down,” said a police officer who investigated the case.
People present at the mall took Naveen to the Government Royapettah Hospital, from where he was later shifted to the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital.
Based on a complaint from Naveen’s father R Sanil Kumar, the Anna Salai police have registered a case of causing death by negligence against the management of the mall. Sanil Kumar is an auto driver and his wife Meenakshi works as a sanitary worker in the Southern Railway.