Bengaluru: A 25-year-old daily wage worker died of asphyxiation while manually cleaning a sewage pit at an international school in Hongasandra in Begur police limits.
The Begur police arrested the owners of the school, Raghavan, his wife Saroja and their son Kishore. The trio held the positions of principal, vice-principal and coordinator, the police said. While Saroja was released on bail, Raghavan and Kishore are sent to judicial custody.
On Saturday, the deceased, Manu V., who was walking by the Jai Hind International School, asked the school management whether they could give him some work. The school officials asked him to clean the sewage pit and handed him over the necessary cleaning equipment.
Manu, who was not equipped with safety gear, entered the sewage pit, while the management staff returned to the school.
The police said that as soon as Manu entered the pit, he began facing breathing problems due to the presence of various poisonous gases inside the pit. Within minutes, he collapsed and died.
The school management shifted Manu to a nearby hospital, where he was declared brought dead. The police was informed about the incident following which they reached the spot and arrested the trio for engaging Manu in manual scavenging.
The police booked the three under Section 304A (death due to negligence) of the IPC and under various sections of the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013.
Manu, a resident of Hongasandra, is survived by his wife Nandini and five-year-old daughter.
In the last 10 years, over 80 people engaged in manual scavenging have died in sewage pits in Bengaluru alone.
