Child, 6, drowns in 15-ft pit at Noida housing colony; contractor arrested

A six-year-old boy drowned after accidentally falling into a water-filled 15-foot-deep pit dug for boring work inside a residential colony in Greater Noida on Saturday (July 25).

The incident comes months after Yuvraj Mehta, a techie, drowned after rescue teams hesitated and waited, thinking of ways to pull him up from his car’s roof that had plunged into a deep drain.

Also read: Noida techie drowning: What went wrong, and why it can happen again

Drowned while playing cricket

The incident took place in the evening in Kaladham Colony when the child, Avyaan Surya, was playing cricket with other children near the pit at around 7 pm, police said on Sunday (July 26).

Avyaan was the child of Siwan Yadav, an art teacher at Kendriya Vidyalaya.

After a frantic search by neighbours in the water, the boy was pulled out of the pit and rushed to the hospital. Doctors, however, declared him dead on arrival.

Tried our best to revive him: Neighbour

Recounting the incident to NDTV, Pranjal Rajput, a neighbour, said he was washing his car when a boy came running to tell him that a child had fallen into the pit.

When Rajput arrived at the site, he saw the security guard. The guard jumped into the pit to rescue the child.

“I called other residents, and about three to four people then jumped into the pit,” he said.

Also read: Andhra Pradesh techie drowns in Missouri river in the US on his birthday

Rajput said the rescuers kept searching for the child in the water for around five minutes, after which one of them found him.

"He pulled him out of the water using his leg, and I helped take him out of the pit," he said.

"We took him out of the pit and tried our best to revive him. We took him to the hospital where doctors declared him dead," he added.

'No child could’ve swum out of that'

The child’s father, Siwan Yadav, said he and his wife, a nurse, went out to check what the commotion was about and someone told them that their boy had fallen into the pit.

“I noticed that one of my society friends had jumped into the pit to rescue the boy,” he said.

Also read: 13, including 6-month-old, killed as huge boulders crush moving SUV in Himachal

“No child could’ve swum out of that,” NDTV quoted a distraught Yadav as saying as he waited for his child’s body outside the mortuary.

“It’s unfair that his life was lost because of the negligence of authorities,” he said.

“He hadn’t seen the world. He was fond of playing outside like all the other children,” Yadav said.

Case filed, contractor arrested

After completing the inquest proceedings, police sent the body for postmortem examination.

Based on a complaint lodged by the victim's family, a case has been registered, and further legal proceedings have been initiated, police said.

Reports quoting residents said the pit was dug by the Greater Noida Authority for boring work and had no barricades or signboard warning of the threat.

AK Singh, the General Manager of the Greater Noida Authority, has claimed the pit was dug without the knowledge of senior officials.

He told NDTV that the authority had approved the installation of a tube well after the residents approached it.

Also read: Hoskote accident: How a joyride at dawn turned deadly for 6 students

“It was to be installed at a nearby location. We have no idea why it was shifted here,” he said.

He said the contractor didn’t inform the authority even though the work started two days back, while admitting that they should have placed proper barricades at the place.

The contractor responsible for the boring work was arrested on Sunday in connection with the incident, they added.