3 workers die cleaning septic tank in Capital

Three men died on Friday after inhaling toxic gases inside a septic tank at a factory in outer Delhi where they were cleaning the tank manually without safety equipment, according to the police.

- Jignasa Sinha

The accident, at the Mundka Industrial Area, underscores chronic enforcement gaps regarding laws that ban manual scavenging and exposes yet again the lacking oversight by municipal authorities in a city where a string of avoidable tragedies — buildings fires, structure collapses — have claimed dozens of lives just this summer.

The police arrested three individuals following the deaths, including factory owner Suraj Marwah, 50, and factory employee Jayant Singh. Contractor Neeraj, 35, who uses a single name, was also taken into custody.

The victims were identified as Arun Singh, 38, Sandeep Paleram, 32, and Chand, 42, who also goes by a single name. All three were residents of the Indra Jheel area in Sultanpuri and had known each other.

Investigators stated that the men died within minutes of entering the tank. They descended sequentially in a bid to rescue one another, operating without mandatory masks, ropes, or gloves.

The Delhi Fire Service received an emergency call from the factory at 12.03pm stating that three people were trapped, and reported that the first crews reached the site only around 12:40-12:45pm.