3 die inside Kolkata drainage line days after SC banned manual scavenging

Kolkata: Three wage labourers died inside an underground drainage line at the Kolkata Leather Complex on Sunday morning.

Kolkata mayor Firhad Hakim, who rushed to the spot, said that he has ordered a police inquiry into the incident.

It comes four days after the Supreme Court banned manual scavenging and manual sewer cleaning in the metro cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.

Hakim said: “One man fell ill after going down the manhole on a public road. The other two went down to rescue him. They all died because waste from the tanneries, which contains various chemicals, was flowing through the common drainage line. The waste is supposed to be sent to the effluent treatment plant. The local Bantala police station will investigate this.”

“Police will inquire why these men were sent down the manhole and why pumps were not used. Nobody will be spared,” he said.

The 1,150-acre leather complex, which is said to be the biggest in Asia, houses around 500 tanneries and leather goods manufacturers.

The deceased were identified as Suman Sardar, Farzan Sheikh and Sheikh Hashim.

Rescue workers had to put on diving gear to go down the 10-ft deep manhole and recover the bodies.

Hakim said: “The bodies will be sent for post mortem examination to determine the exact cause of death. It is suspected that all three inhaled a poisonous gas that formed inside the tunnel. The manhole was otherwise supposed to be dry. A private contractor hired these labourers to clean the drainage line.”

“Chief minister Mamata Banerjee asked me to rush to Bantala the moment she heard of the incident. The family of each victim will be given a compensation of ₹10 lakh by the state,” he added.

On January 29, a Supreme Court bench of justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Aravind Kumar issued directives prohibiting manual scavenging and manual sewer cleaning in six metropolitan cities.

The ruling was passed after hearing on a writ petition filed by Balram Singh, a citizen seeking complete eradication of manual scavenging in India.

“We hereby order manual sewer cleaning and manual scavenging shall be stopped in all top metropolitan cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Hyderabad,” the court said in its order.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) targeted the Trinamool Congress after Sunday’s deaths.

“Due to the incompetence of state’s shameless Chief Minister @MamataOfficial, three sanitation workers lost their lives prematurely....,” Sukanta Majumdar, president of the BJP Bengal unit, wrote on X.

“Two most critical questions arise from this incident: 1. Despite the new regulations prohibiting manual entry into manholes or drainage systems, how were three workers sent into a manhole filled with dangerous gases? 2. Did the authorities take any measures to ensure the safety and well-being of these three workers? The state’s incompetent Chief Minister and her trusted officials must take responsibility for the deaths of these three helpless sanitation workers. This incident is a State Sponsored Murder,” Majumdar wrote.

The leather complex on the city’s outskirts was built by the erstwhile Left Front government principally to shift old tanneries from Kolkata’s densely populated Tangra area.

The Trinamool Congress (TMC) government plans to make an upcoming sector of the complex operational by 2026. The total investment for the new project will be around ₹10,000 crore, the government said in 2024.