CHENNAI: A contract worker engaged by Pallavaram Municipality died of asphyxiation on Friday after he was made to enter an underground sewer at Chromepet to clear a blockage. A municipality supervisor has been arrested. The deceased, N Diwahar (24), was a resident of Otteri near Vandalur.
“On Friday, four men including Diwahar, were assigned the job of cleaning an underground drainage canal in Ambedkar Street. Though a suction lorry was deployed to clean the drainage, supervisor Marimuthu asked someone to get inside the canal to do so. Diwahar came forward to enter the 18-feet-deep canal. He was less than eight feet inside when he started being asphyxiated and signalled for a rope,” said a police inspector.
By the time other workers started using the rope to pull him out, it was too late and Diwahar had already died, the officer added. Police took Marimuthu into custody and registered a case under IPC Section 304 (Punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder). He was remanded to judicial custody.