Four persons died of suffocation while cleaning a septic tank near a residential building in Loni Kalbhor in Pune district, said police authorities on Wednesday.
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The incident took place around 11.30 a.m. The deceased were tasked with cleaning a septic tank behind a residential complex in Loni’s Kadamwak Vasti, around 20 km from Pune city.
“The first victim was taken out of the tank in an unconscious state. He was rushed to a nearby hospital, where doctors declared him brought dead. The others were soon taken out, but had already died,” said a police station official, adding that the process of identifying the victims was on along with further investigations into the matter.
In September last year, in a landmark judgment, the Bombay High Court had directed the Maharashtra government to pay ₹10 lakh each as compensation to the widows of three manual scavengers who had died while cleaning a septic tank in a housing society in Mumbai’s Govandi area in December 2019.
At the time, the petitioner’s lawyer had argued that though the deaths had occurred after a private housing society had employed the men as manual scavengers, the State was liable and responsible for providing compensation to the families and that the onus of eradicating manual scavenging in accordance with Article 17 of the Constitution (abolition of untouchability) was on the State government.