20 hours after falling into drain, body of 11-year-old found in Uttar Pradesh

MEERUT: More than 20 hours after he fell into the Kamela road drain, the body of 11-year-old Anas was found floating in it a few metres away from the spot he had fallen by civic body workers.
The boy had slipped into the drain on Monday morning while crossing the temporary iron bridge placed over it. His family has demanded compensation from the government for not building a safe and permanent structure over the drain that is 12 feet deep and is always flooded with filth.
Tasneem Ali, the deceased’s father, said his son had slipped because the bridge is only barely 2.5 feet wide and has no boundary wall. “Had this been a properly constructed structure, there would have been walls around it, which would have saved my child,” he added.
SK Singh, city magistrate, has ruled out payment of compensation. “It was an accident and not a case of natural calamity, hence the family is not eligible for compensation. We have already made this clear to them. They were not even ready to get the post-mortem done for verification of cause of death, so any other compensation is also not possible in this case,” he added.