Armed with just a bucket and shovel, Ajay and Joginder would enter sewer lines choked with filth and clean them for hours even as residents would turn their faces and walk away.
They had been doing this for years, for wages that would not even buy them a decent living, let alone think about future.
They were fully aware of the safety equipment required for such a job, but it was one of those comforts they could only aspire to possess.
Whenever the brothers spoke about work, they never had happy stories to share.
Their discussions always revolved around low wages, back-breaking work and stench that would never leave their hands.
Every now and then, there would be stories of labourers dying while entering a sewer line to clean it.
Then on Sunday, Ajay heard about an accident where Joginder and two others – Annu and Mohan – lost their lives while cleaning a sewer in Lajpat Nagar. Tragedy hit home.
Now, the 30-year-old says he’s so shaken he is considering leaving the profession.
“I work for a different contractor but it’s the same story everywhere. We know there is nothing called safety. My options are few but I do not want to clean sewers anymore. We had plans to get Joginder married but that would not happen now,” said the east Delhi resident.
Untied rakhi
The incident happened just a day before Raksha Bandhan and each of the three families had an eager sister or a cousin waiting to tie a rakhi to her brother. That wait will never get over.
In Joginder’s family, the news was broken to his hospitalised sister Brahmawati on the eve of the festival.
She is suffering from multiple ailments and the news was a bolt from the blue. In an assessment that was more emotional than medical, Ajay said her recovery will be affected because of the shocker.
She is the only sister of five brothers, he added.
For Sonia, the sister of Dallupura resident Mohan, who was the first one to enter the drain on Sunday, homecoming could not be more tragic than this.
“Sonia had come over and was really looking forward to the festival, as were most of us. What did we know that things would take a such a turn,” said Mohan’s brother Babloo who was waiting at the AIIMS mortuary on Monday like the other relatives.
₹1 lakh as aid
Mohan (21) made ₹300 for each day of work and that would never be more than 15 times a month, said Babloo, adding that with that income he supported a family which included dependent parents who were 70 plus and his wife and two children, the younger one a three-year-old girl.
Annu also leaves behind a four-year-old son and his wife who have no source of income after his sudden demise, said a relative.
Rajouri Garden MLA Manjinder Singh Sirsa on Monday announced a financial aid of ₹1 lakh to the families of each of the three deceased labourers.
