Man dies cleaning manhole in Hyderabad

A 32-year-old man working as a manual scavenger at Abdullapurmet died of suffocation while trying to clean a manhole in JNNURM colony on Monday. The name of the deceased was T Narsing Rao.

According to police, around 2,500 families live in JNNURM colony  where the work was being carried out. For a few days, a manhole had been overflowing in a block of the colony.

On Monday, the residents hired three men, including Rao (32) and one Narasimha, to clean the overflowing manhole. They offered them Rs 2,000 for the job.At around 12.30 pm, Narsing started work on one manhole. After few minutes, when his friends tried to communicate, Narsing did not respond. When they rushed to check on him, Narsing was found to be unconscious. He was lifted out of the



manhole immediately, but had died by then, said police.

“Narsing and his friends used to do some petty jobs for the residents. Today, when they were hired, the trio were drunk. Narsing, after opening the sewerage manhole, bent inside to check the blockage with a stick, and became unconscious,” said Hayathnagar inspector J Narender Goud. Many who work as manual scavengers are known to consume alcohol before entering a manhole in order to steel themselves for the task at hand.

Narsing inhaled poisonous gases inside the manhole and died of suffocation.

The deceased’s mother T Anasuya lodged a complaint with the police and a case of suspicious death has been booked.