Minor girl dies after falling into sewer tank in MP's Shivpuri; locals stage protest

Shivpuri (MP), Jun 15 (PTI) A 15-year-old girl has died after falling into an open sewer tank at a residential complex in Madhya Pradesh's Shivpuri district, police said on Sunday.

The incident occurred at around 8 pm on Saturday at Santushti Apartments under Kotwali police station area, inspector Kripal Singh Rathore told reporters.

Angry residents staged a protest near the accident site on Sunday morning, demanding arrest of the building owner and a probe into the construction quality of the apartments.

The girl was playing in the premises when she accidentally stepped on to the rusted lid of the old sewer tank, lost her balance and fell into the 15-foot-deep structure.

The other children playing with her raised an alarm, drawing local residents to the spot, the official said.

The girl's younger brother, who was right behind her, narrowly escaped the fall after a bystander caught hold of him in the nick of time, police said.

Residents spotted the girl's slipper floating on the surface but could not locate her.

Authorities were immediately notified, following which teams from the police, local municipal body and the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) launched a rescue operation, Rathore said.

The body was retrieved from the sewer tank at around 1 am on Sunday and sent for postmortem, he said.

"The tank was in a highly unsafe condition and the cover was completely damaged. Preliminary investigation points to gross negligence by the apartments' owner," he added.

A case has been registered against the Santushti Apartments owner, Arjun Diwan, under section 106 (causing death by negligence) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita on the complaint of the victim's father Ravi Badhoria, the official said.

Angry residents staged a protest and accused the apartments' owner of ignoring repeated complaints about the tank's hazardous condition. PTI COR LAL GK