A 51-year-old autorickshaw driver named Ajit Sharma, a resident of Nand Nagri in Delhi, drowned on Friday in northeastern Delhi’s Harsh Vihar neighbourhood after his vehicle reportedly slid into a pothole by accident. The Public Works Department (PWD) dug the pothole to erect a pillar inside of it as part of the construction of a flyover in the area. However, the ditch was filled with water as a result of the recent rainfall in the capital.
An official from the PWD stated that they are investigating the incident’s circumstances. According to Deputy Commissioner of Police (Northeast) Joy Tirkey, a private complaint record (PCR) call of an individual drowning in a ditch close to the service road alongside Wazirabad Road was received at around 3.30 PM. The officer claimed that rainwater accumulated in the pothole, which was excavated close to a flyover that was being developed.
“It seems he tried to drive over the ditch without realising how deep it was and drowned accidentally,” the official stated. He added that the automobile was discovered stuck in the ditch, and his body was discovered by a passerby late on the 30th of June after it appeared on the surface. The dead body had been transported to the Guru Teg Bahadur (GTB) Hospital for a post-mortem, and there were no injury marks on it.
Additionally, based on the police reports, no eyewitnesses to Ajit Sharma’s death have been found. They mentioned that the body will be released to the family following the post-mortem examination while a further probe was underway.
Heavy rains have caused waterlogging in several areas of the national capital and resulted in traffic congestions that have inconvenienced commuters around the city. In response to the incident, Virendra Sachdeva, the president of the Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party, proclaimed that the majority of the city’s roadways are flooded after rains on Thursday and Friday, despite the Aam Aadmi Party government’s exaggerated promises.
“The situation can be gauged from the fact that the ground floor of the Secretariat of the Delhi government was waterlogged, while an auto driver died by drowning in a roadside ditch in Harsh Vihar near Wazirabad. The news has disturbed the people of Delhi,” Sachdeva noted in a statement.
In the words of Sachdeva, the Delhi Municipal Corporation and the Delhi government must answer to the public for the water logging on the roads. He also charged that a significant scam occurred during the cleaning of drains in Delhi.