A 25-year-old motorcyclist died on Thursday evening after falling into an open pit in Delhi’s Janakpuri area. The victim, Kamal Dhyani, was commuting home when the accident occurred.
His family says the police are not cooperating. Dhyani’s brother claimed that relatives visited six different police stations seeking help. They only learned of the tragedy the following morning when a policeman answered Dhyani’s cell phone.
“The last time I spoke to him, he said he would be home in 10 minutes,” his brother said. “When I called again at 12:30, he didn’t pick up. We were worried and started looking for him.”
The brother first checked Dhyani’s office in Rohini and then went to the Janakpuri police station. “The police gave us his last location but we have not been able to find him. This is gross negligence. My brother would not have deliberately crashed into the pit,” he added. He claimed they checked the pit at 1.30am but found nothing. “If the police had intervened in time, my brother would have lived,” he said.
Dhyani’s friend also criticized the police response. He claimed officers told them a formal report could not be made until 11am the following day. While the police were monitoring the phone’s signal, they reportedly refused to disclose specific coordinates.
He said he was talking to his friend when he arrived at the district center and was only 15 minutes from home. When he didn’t arrive after an hour and didn’t respond to calls, they worried he might have been in an accident because he had been involved in accidents before.
The friend said the family later went to the district center and then to the police station, where they were told that a complaint could only be lodged after 11am. At their request, the police traced his location and asked them to search within a radius of 200 meters. Seven people searched the area from midnight to 7 a.m. but found nothing. He added that the pit was checked at 1 a.m. and that the road was monitored throughout the night, so it was unclear how the victim ended up there later.
As a result, a seven-person search party tried to find the victim, but to no avail.
The friend criticized the law enforcement agency, claiming it ignored the critical nature of the emergency by refusing to provide accurate tracking data during the search, which led to the fatality. He further challenged the department as to why the handset was not successfully traced during the night.
DCP West, Sharad Bhaskar, promised that if family and friends were indeed denied help during their search, the behavior would be thoroughly investigated.
Bhaskar said a pit dug for Delhi Jal Board work turned fatal after 25-year-old Kamal Dhyani’s motorcycle fell into it on Monday night. He said the police would investigate all stakeholders involved in the DJB project. According to him, the victim’s brother approached the Janakpuri police station around 2.45 am after Kamal did not return home. The police then tracked the victim’s mobile phone which last showed his location near Janakpuri District Park.
He said the head constable along with family members searched the area for almost two and a half hours but found nothing. Bhaskar said the matter came to light around 8 am when a woman informed the police about a body lying in a 15 feet deep pit. He added that while records show that the family visited the Janakpuri police station, allegations that help was sought at multiple police stations will be probed. An FIR is being registered and efforts are underway to retrieve the motorcycle from the pit.
