Days after a 34-year-old woman died of electrocution after she came in contact with damaged wires in a waterlogged lane outside the New Delhi railway station, Delhi Police on Thursday said it has booked a senior Northern Railway official.
The police said Bharat Bhushan, Senior Section Engineer, Delhi Division, was booked under Section 41(1) A of the CrPC following his interrogation on Wednesday.
A senior police officer said that Mr. Bhushan has not been arrested since he is cooperating with the probe. “But we might invoke negligence charges against him since he is the official responsible for supervising the power network at the station,” the officer said.
Technical inspection
Sakshi Ahuja died on Sunday morning after stepping into a puddle in which electric current was flowing from a damaged cable. Another boy, Sohail, 17, also died around the same time that day allegedly due to exposed power cables leaking current into a waterlogged lane in Taimoor Nagar.
DCP (Railways) Apoorva Gupta said that on Tuesday railway officials conducted a technical inspection of the incident site and a report is now awaited.
“The inspecting team has removed the cables from the place of incident and handed them over to the police. The cables have been seized as evidence,” the DCP said, adding that the spot, which had been cordoned off after the incident, has now been handed over to the Railways for repair works.
Meanwhile, a senior BSES official said that the discoms — BSES Rajdhani Power Limited (BRPL) and BSES Yamuna Power Limited (BYPL) — are undertaking various measures to avoid similar electricity-related incidents in future. BYPL and BRPL supply electricity to the New Delhi railway station and Taimoor Nagar area, respectively.
“As a part of the monsoon preparedness the height of the foundation (base) of transformers in low-lying areas will be increased to safe levels, proper fencing around all plinth and pole mounted transformers, deployment of quick response teams to tackle exigencies, establishment of war room to review complaints and their quick resolution,” the BSES official said.
He added that safety inspections are being carried out on electrical equipment, including sub-stations, feeder pillars, distribution boxes and fencing across BSES areas to identify and rectify hazardous conditions, if any, and ensure the safety of the infrastructure.
