New Delhi: As Shahjahan caught hold of her four-year-old son, Imran, to take him back home from the playground, he pleaded with her, “Bas, thodi der aur mummy.” A few minutes after slipping away from her, he fell down an open manhole into an almost 50-foot-deep sewer just across the road. His body was found after nearly 20 hours.Imran’s family came to Delhi almost four years ago from Bihar’s Motihari. His father, Khurshid (50), is a labourer and his mother a homemaker. They had planned a trip to their village after this Chhath to avoid crowded trains. Once they returned to Delhi, Imran and his five-year-old brother, Irfan, were to be enrolled in a govt school.Imran’s family spent the entire night at the spot where he was last seen, hoping he would be rescued. Khurshid said, “It was only the next day that I identified a mutilated arm, found by rescue personnel, as my son’s. However, we still have not seen his face.”The manhole is sandwiched between the park in Ranhola and a larger drain. A wall separates the two areas, except for an opening where the remains of a metal gate are visible. The gate was allegedly broken by miscreants a few months ago and hasn’t been replaced since, locals claimed, adding that children keep drifting towards the drain to retrieve cricket balls hit over the park’s boundaries, an act that endangers their safety.According to Imran’s family, he and his brother, Irfan, were playing at the park at 3 pm when both went to answer nature’s call near the manhole covered only by a fibre sheet. The sheet collapsed as Imran climbed onto it, dropping him straight into a narrow sewer pipeline. Following his elder brother’s scream for help, the mother rushed to the spot and alerted police.The family alleged delay and laxity during the subsequent rescue operation. “They (the personnel) kept inserting a wooden stick in and out of the manhole while searching for my son. Only after I threatened to jump into the sewer the next morning did they extend the search for Imran,” Khurshid claimed.“I have lost a son to govt’s negligence. I hope the authorities give us fair compensation so that I can at least educate my elder son,” the bereaved father said.
