NEW DELHI: An unidentified person died after falling into a 40-feet-deep and 1.5-feet-wide borewell pit located inside a room at the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) office in the Keshopur Mandi area on the dead night of Sunday.
According to a Delhi Police official, a PCR call was received at Vikaspuri police station during the night, regarding a person falling in the borewell inside the Keshopur Jal Board Office.
"The local police as well as Fire Brigade reached the place of incident and started the rescue operation," Deputy Commissioner of Police (west) Vichitra Veer said, adding a team of NDRF was called early Sunday morning.
The Fire Department, which was part of the rescue operation along with a team of the National Disaster Response Force, received the call about the incident at 1 am after which five fire tenders were immediately pressed into service.
For more than 8 hours, the rescue agency tried different methods to pull up the man from the borewell but they could not succeed. Next morning, a team of NDRF reached the spot and after due deliberations, they planned to rescue the man by digging a new parallel borewell.
However, after 13 hours of operation, the rescue teams pulled out the body of the man. He was taken to a nearby hospital where doctors declared him dead.
"The person has been extracted from the borewell. Unfortunately, he is dead. Prima facie he appears to be of the age between 25-35 years," the DCP said.
Delhi Minister Atishi, who had also reached the spot to take stock of the situation, said the borewell was in a locked room and prima facie it seems that an attempt was made to enter the room by breaking the lock by force.
"How he entered the room and fell into the borewell pit is a matter of police investigation. To ensure that such cases do not repeat, strict orders have been given to the Jal Board that all private and government borewells lying closed in Delhi should be sealed by welding within 48 hours and a report should be submitted to me," Atishi said.
Atishi also said that action would be taken against the official who was responsible for this sewage treatment plant.
The minister was briefed about the rescue operation by the teams deployed at the spot.
"I have ordered all borewells in Delhi to be inspected in the next 48 hours and action will be taken against the official who was responsible for this STP (sewage treatment plant)," Atishi told PTI.
As the incident took place near a Delhi Metro construction site, the DMRC issued a statement saying that neither they built this borewell nor did they make any use of it.
"The pump room inside which this borewell was located belongs to the Delhi Jal Board. The borewell was already installed inside that pump room when DMRC took over the area around it for construction work," the DMRC said.
(With inputs from PTI)
