New Delhi: More than 72 hours after a boy fell into an open drain in south Delhi’s Jasola village, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) Tuesday managed to fish out his body from a stretch of Agra Canal, 500 metres from the spot where he had presumably drowned.The dramatic yet frustrating search operation, carried out by NDRF and police with villagers intently watching on, was hampered by heavy showers, swampy soil and the swollen drain.It was finally around 2pm that NDRF personnel reached a part of the canal into which the drain flows in by dumping debris and soil before they could find the body of 15-year-old Mithun Kumar.The Class VIII student fell into the drain, which lacks a cover and an embankment, while trying to retrieve a kite at around 11am Saturday. According to locals, cops and NDRF personnel were wary of entering the drain as its “bank was slippery and it was deep with the water flowing fast”.They tried looking for the boy in the open drain for the first two days, but this yielded nothing. A JCB was brought in, but it allegedly could not grip the loose earth around the drain.“I cannot swim. So, a few of my neighbours offered to dive in, but police did not allow them to do so,” said Mithun’s father Awadhesh Kumar.After the first 48 hours, the search was extended to the nearby canal. NDRF personnel zeroed in on a nearly 20-foot-deep marshy stretch covered with dense vegetation. Finding it treacherous to negotiate, the team Monday used machines to dump debris and soil into the canal and create a path to reach a spot where they found Mithun’s body.‘People Keep Falling In’Jasola village appears to have been built around two drains, including the one into which Mithun fell. Waste from houses, meat shops and runoff from streets end up in these drains, which choke at regular intervals.On Tuesday, TOI had to tread carefully over a rudimentary pathway of bricks half-submerged in a swampy pathway to reach Mithun’s house, where his aunt was seen flipping through his drawing book. “The boy loved drawing. All he needed was a look at a picture and he would draw it from memory,” she said, caressing the hair of Mithun’s mother, Anitha Devi, who lay motionless in the cramped one-room house.The Kumars shifted here 18 years ago from a village in Uttar Pradesh. Awadhesh is a sanitation worker with a private firm in Batla House while his wife is a domestic help. Both were at work when their son fell to his death.Claiming that this was not a one-off incident, a distraught Awadhesh said, “People keep falling into these drains every few months, but no one cares. I am fortunate to at least find my son’s body.”Rita Devi, a neighbour, said, “All my life, I have seen the drain without a cover. After heavy showers, water flows into lanes and even our houses.”The villagers are unanimous in their demand that a wall should be built along the drain as a temporary solution before it is drained over time. “It was our child yesterday. We can’t sit still and let another kid die like this tomorrow,” said Shehzadi, another neighbour.Not far from this spot, Mohd Anas,15, died after falling into a waterlogged pit in 2017. His mother, Ruksana Begh, told TOI Tuesday that the pit is still full of water. “My son was found two hours after he had drowned,” she said, adding that she later moved out of the village.
