Ghaziabad: Sumit Kumar had left his farmland in Farrukhabad two years ago and come to Ghaziabad with his wife and two daughters, chasing the promise of a better life in the NCR city. They shifted to a rented two-room house on the ground floor of lane number 44 in Sarvoday Nagar and were only beginning to find their footing when, on Thursday afternoon, his three-year-old daughter Manvi slipped and drowned in the waterlogged stretch outside.The toddler had slipped out behind her father, who had waited through the morning for the downpour to ease before setting off with his cart. Inside, his wife, Khusboo, was racing to keep the floodwater from ruining what furniture they had, and several minutes passed before she noticed her daughter was missing.She searched the lanes, then the neighbours’ houses, but Manvi was nowhere. It was not until 2.30 pm, as the floodwater finally began to recede, that anyone found her — a small fist breaking the surface of the waterlogged street just outside her own front door.“Our child died right in front of her house, drowned in a three-foot waterlogged street,” said Anuj Kumar, the girl’s uncle, who lives nearby. “It is still hard to believe that something like this could happen in a city like Ghaziabad. We don’t know who to blame. We are shattered.”
The lane does not flood from rainwater alone, but from an overwhelmed drainage network tied to the main drain along NH-9, which carries effluent from industrial units
Though police and officials from the Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation visited the spot, local councillor Om Prakash did not reach out to the family. “We haven’t seen him since,” Anuj said. On Thursday, neighbours staged a protest with the child’s body, demanding accountability and compensation for the family. “We demand action and compensation for the family,” one of them said.Sumit Kumar has stopped eating since his daughter’s death, and Khusboo has been inconsolable. Manvi’s five-year-old sister, Aarvi, has been staying with a neighbour since the death. Her parents have not told her the truth, saying only that Manvi is in the hospital and will return. “I had called Sumit from Farrukhabad and now regret my decision,” Anuj said. “Her elder sister is too young to understand what is happening around her.”Recounting Thursday’s events, Anuj said his brother had stepped out around 12.30 pm, while it was still raining and the bylanes were already inundated. “Manvi followed her father, and she must have fallen and drowned. She was just three years old, and three feet of water was enough to drown her, because we found her lying face down on the lane.”Residents said the tragedy was not an aberration but the result of a drain the GMC neglected for years. “About two years ago, a little boy on a cycle fell in an open drain and his body was recovered a kilometre and a half away after two days,” said a local resident. “Every year before monsoon we make a plea to GMC to clean up the drain, and every year we were sent back empty-handed,” he added.The lane does not flood from rainwater alone, but from an overwhelmed drainage network tied to the main drain along NH-9, which carries effluent from industrial units, including Rathi Steel. With that drain clogged, wastewater meant to flow toward the Shahberi drain reversed course, and because the neighbourhood sits on low ground, the backup flooded not just the lanes but the ground floors of more than 80 houses.A GMC official called it “an unfortunate incident” and said the matter was under review.In Indirapuram, the same storm claimed a second life. Narendra, a security guard, was electrocuted Thursday after coming into contact with current from a transformer near a park gate.His cousin Kamlesh Kushwaha blamed the electricity department’s negligence for failing to insulate the equipment before the rains. “During the monsoon, when water collects on the road and the transformer is near the park gate, officials should at least have ensured that,” Kushwaha said.Narendra had moved to Indirapuram from Madhya Pradesh five years ago, working as a guard and cleaning cars for roughly Rs 18,000 a month, of which he sent Rs 15,000 home to support his parents. “His mother is often ill, and his father is a farmer who is no longer able to work as hard as before,” Kushwaha said. “Narendra was their last source of support,” he said. The family has taken the body back to Madhya Pradesh for last rites.Indirapuram ACP Suryabali Maurya said an FIR had been registered against the contractor and officials concerned under BNS section 106(1) which covers death by negligence, and that a team had been formed to investigate.Across Ghaziabad, three more people were also killed in rain-related incidents on Thursday.
