CHENNAI: A 42-year-old man allegedly died on Wednesday after he fell into a temporary pit dug up by the Mangadu Municipality for draining rainwater. Police said the cause of death was unclear and they are waiting for the postmortem and viscera reports to ascertain whether the man was in an inebriated state when he fell into the pit.
Kancheepuram Collector M Aarthi has ordered an RDO inquiry. A case under Section 174 of the CrPC has been booked. Municipal officials said it would be easy for anyone to get out of the two-foot-wide and
1.5-foot-deep pit. Barricades were also placed along the pits, officials said.
While civic body officials and police claimed that the pits were barricaded, locals said barricades were placed only in a few places. The pit in which the man fell was barricaded only after the accident, a local source said.
According to the Mangadu police, the victim, Lakshmipathy, worked as a tyre mechanic at a private college. On Wednesday morning, passersby found him lying face down inside the pit. After finding him dead, local residents informed the Mangadu police.
The police recovered the body and sent it to the Kilpauk Medical College Hospital for postmortem.
A police officer said, “The man had left his house at Mangadu and walked along the Mangadu-Malayambakkam road around 5am on Wednesday. He must have slipped and fell into the pit.”
Speaking to TNIE, a municipal official said the pit was barricaded and it was not clear how the man fell into it.
“The pit is only 1.5 feet deep and anybody who falls into it can get out quite easily. We suspect the man could have been drunk and hence he was not able to get out of it,” the official said. Another municipal official said temporary pits were dug up for draining rainwater on Mangadu-Malayambakkam road as it was a low-lying area. The official said that they had placed barricades and wooden planks to help people cross some deeper pits. The official said, “We cannot close these pits as heavy rains have been forecasted for the next few days.”