NEW DELHI: It began the same way, on two different nights, in Greater Noida and Delhi, which are barely an hour apart.
A young man finished work. He called home. He got on his vehicle. And then—nothing.
In Noida, it was Yuvraj Mehta, a 27-year-old software engineer, driving through Sector 150 on the night of January 16, slick with fog and water. In Delhi, weeks later, it was Kamal Dhayani, 25, a private bank employee, riding his motorcycle back from Rohini to Vikaspuri after a late night at work on Thursday. Both were ordinary journeys, the kind families across the NCR take for granted every night.
Both journeys ended in darkness—at the bottom of open, unattended pits.
Before leaving for the office on Thursday, Kamal told his mother that Friday would be his day off and that the family would celebrate his parents’ anniversary together. His mother waited for him all through Thursday night, unaware that by morning she would be told her son had died after falling into an open pit dug by the Delhi Jal Board and carelessly left uncovered in Janakpuri.
For his family, the night stretched endlessly. His phone rang unanswered. Messages went unread. By midnight, anxiety hardened into fear. By 12.30 am, they were at police stations and hospitals in and around Janakpuri and the Rohni-Palam route (Kamal’s last call was from the Janakpuri District Centre at 11.53 pm). He didn’t come home.
Police teams joined the search. Phone towers were tracked. Streets were scanned in the cold hours before dawn. Kamal’s brother and friends searched the night, too.
At 7.30 am, the search ended not with relief, but with a scream stuck in the throat.
Kamal’s body lay inside a 15-foot-deep pit dug by the Delhi Jal Board on Joginder Singh Marg. His Apache motorcycle rested nearby, twisted and silent. There were no barricades. No warning lights. No signs. Just a hole on a busy transit road, waiting.
What connects Noida’s Sector 150 to West Delhi’s Janakpuri isn’t geography, but indifference.
Both pits were part of ongoing public works. Both were left exposed. Both turned into death traps after sunset. In both cases, responsibility arrived only after the body was pulled out.
Officials promise inquiries. Urban Development Minister Ashish Sood ordered a formal probe. The Delhi Jal Board expressed condolences to the bereaved family and said that it has set up an internal committee to investigate the circumstances leading to the death, promising strict action if negligence is established.
The words are familiar, rehearsed, almost ritualistic. But the families are left with quieter questions that no investigation seems able to answer. How does a pit this dangerous remain open on a public road? Who checks it at night? Who decides that a warning light is optional? And how many complaints does it take before safety matters more than speed or cost?
There is something especially cruel about these deaths because they happen in such ordinary moments.
Across NCR, open pits dot roads like unspoken threats. During the day, drivers swerve around them. At night, they disappear into darkness, indistinguishable from the asphalt until it is too late. Everyone knows they are there. Everyone assumes someone else is responsible. Until someone doesn’t come home.