Hyderabad: Doctor from Indore falls to death in lift shaft

HYDERABAD: A 60-year-old doctor from Indore, who was in Hyderabad for his daughter's wedding arrangements, died after falling into the under-construction lift shaft of a hotel in Banjara Hills on Friday night.

Following a complaint by his family members, the Banjara Hills police registered a case under Section 304 A (negligence causing death) of IPC against the hotel management.

According to cops, the doctor, Pankaj Kumar Jain, and his family arrived in the city on Thursday and checked into a hotel in Koti. They moved to the Banjara Hills hotel on Friday where they were allotted two rooms - one on the third floor and the other on the fourth floor. At around 10 pm, when his family members gathered on the ground floor, they found the doctor was missing.

"Initially, his daughter Anupama called up her sister who was in her room on the third floor, to check if he was there. When they realised that he wasn't there, they started searching for him and found his body in the under-construction lift shaft which was on the sixth floor. It had an entrance to the shaft," a police official said, quoting from the complaint lodged by Anupama.

The complainant, alleging that the accident occurred due to negligence on the part of the hotel staff, also stated that she and her younger sister had earlier got stuck in the same lift. While on their way down from the fourth floor, where they had gone to keep some luggage in their room, she said the lift automatically opened on the third floor.

"There was a temporary mesh that was kept outside the shaft by hotel authorities. Pankaj fell directly into the shaft from the sixth floor. We are trying to find out why he went to the sixth floor, where it was dark," said Banjara Hills sub-inspector, B Praveen Kumar.