3-year-old boy drowns in Greater Noida pit, villagers say officials ignored letters

Noida: A three-year-old boy drowned in a flooded land at Dalelgarh village in Greater Noida off the Eastern Peripheral Expressway, the second drowning incident in a month in the district after software engineer Yuvraj Mehta lost his life as his car crashed into an abandoned, waterlogged construction site in Noida's Sector 150 on Jan 16. According to police, the child, Devansh, had come to the village from Sikandrabad with his parents Anil and Anjali to attend a community feast (bhandara) at a local temple, Baleshwar Baba Samadhi complex, organised by his maternal grandfather. Around 11am on Feb 14, he went missing from the temple premises.
When his parents could not locate him, family members and villagers began searching nearby areas. Some suspected the child may have wandered towards the waterlogged patch of land close to the temple. He was later found in the pit and rushed to a nearby hospital, where doctors declared him dead. Police said the boy may have slipped into a water-filled pit while playing. No formal complaint was filed with the police. SDM (Sadar) Ashutosh Gupta said the incident had been classified as a state disaster case, with steps initiated to grant Rs 4 lakh in financial assistance to the bereaved family under disaster relief norms.Residents told TOI that they had alerted the Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority about the hazardous waterlogged site in a letter dated Feb 4, but no corrective action was taken. Covered in hyacinth, the 160-sq-metre pit has been collecting the village's sewage for a long time, Amit Bhati, a Dalelgarh resident and secretary of the Gram Dalelgarh Vikas Samiti, said. He claimed the Samiti had written earlier this month to the Greater Noida Authority CEO, warning that the pit often overflowed and left the Dalelgarh-Vilaspur road waterlogged. With no indication of depth, the absence of barricades and warning signs made the stretch dangerous for locals, it said. The letter, sent days after the Jan 16 drowning, also warned that children, senior citizens and motorcyclists risked falling into the water, especially after sundown and during the monsoon. "They were alerted but took no corrective action, leading to the incident now," Bhati said. He blamed Greater Noida Authority and zilla parishad for laxity.On Monday, DM Medha Roopam wrote to the Greater Noida Authority CEO, seeking urgent safety measures in the area. The action came after a district administration team visited the spot on Sunday and found the waterlogged land was located close to a religious site located along the Dalelgarh-Vilaspur road, where community feasts were organised frequently.Citing the flooded land's proximity to the temple, Roopam stressed the need for fencing between the waterlogged stretch and the religious complex to avert further accidents.Greater Noida Authority general manager AK Singh, meanwhile, told TOI their team inspected the site and found the land was registered under the revenue records' khasra number 377 and was jointly owned by three villagers. The adjoining temple stands on separate private plots, khasra numbers 381 and 382. Singh said officials found steps leading from the temple into the waterlogged pit were constructed by the temple management. "The priest told us the pit was being used by visitors. During Saturday's programme, the child left the temple, reached the pit through these steps and drowned," he said.The official added that the villagers had not informed the administration or GNIDA about the event. "Had we been informed, we would have made arrangements to ensure safety," Singh said.Referring to the Vikas Samiti's letter, Singh said it flagged waterlogged pits and potholes along village roads, not the waterlogged land near the temple, and that remedial work on roadside spots was underway.