By: Express News ServiceAhmedabad | September 12, 2025 03:02 AM IST 4 min readOn Thursday, Deputy SP (Superintendent of Police) Tapansinh Dodia of the SC/ST Cell of the Ahmedabad Rural Police said the two deceased men had been contracted to work on the private sewer line of the construction site. “After finishing that work, they were supposed to connect it to the main sewer line of the municipal corporation but the line was choked up due to the rains. We have found that the two men were then asked to clean the line connecting the private sewer with the main line. That is when their deaths took place,” he added.Three persons have been booked for the deaths of two men from the Dalit community after they died of asphyxiation in a sewer manhole in the Bopal area of Ahmedabad City.Vikas Lalbahadur Kori (20) and Kanhaiyalal Khushiram Kori (21) had died on September 5.While it was just the labour contractor who was initially booked and arrested, the Ahmedabad Rural Police have now named the site contractor and site engineer in the case and are looking to arrest them as well.Mukeshkumar Someshwar Adalat Thakur was booked under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) Sections 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 125 (endangering human life or personal safety), as well as sections 7 and 9 of the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act. He was also booked under section 3(2)(v) of the Atrocity Act.The FIR was filed at Bopal police station on the complaint of Lalbahadur Chhotelal Kori (48) of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh. The FIR stated that his son Vikas had been working as a plumber in Ahmedabad for the last three years.On September 6, Lalbahadur said he received a call from his relative Anish that Vikas and his friend Kanhaiyalal had been asked to enter a manhole of a sewer (gutter) near The Garden Bungalows in Bopal and that he had fallen unconscious. He was told that Vikas would be transported home by ambulance for treatment. However, when the ambulance reached his home in Amethi the next day, on September 7, it was Vikas’s lifeless body that was lowered out of the vehicle, he stated in the FIR.Upon asking Anish about Vikas’s death, Lalbahadur stated in the FIR that he learnt that around 1.30 pm on September 5, contractor Thakur had brought a pressure machine and asked Vikas to descend into the gutter to clean it without providing him with any safety equipment. When Vikas fell unconscious, Kanhaiyalal went inside to help him out but he, too, fainted. Other people present at the site then called the fire department who rescued both the men and took them to a nearby private hospital.While Kanhaiyalal was declared dead at 3.40 pm, Vikas breathed his last at 10.40 pm.Story continues below this adOn Thursday, Deputy SP (Superintendent of Police) Tapansinh Dodia of the SC/ST Cell of the Ahmedabad Rural Police said the two deceased men had been contracted to work on the private sewer line of the construction site.“After finishing that work, they were supposed to connect it to the main sewer line of the municipal corporation but the line was choked up due to the rains. We have found that the two men were then asked to clean the line connecting the private sewer with the main line. That is when their deaths took place,” he added.Parshottam Vaghela of Manav Garima NGO, who is the petitioner in a PIL on the deaths of sanitation workers currently being heard in the Gujarat High Court, told The Indian Express, “The law is very clear that those responsible for the deaths of workers, including government officials who are in charge, are supposed to be held accountable.”Speaking to The Indian Express, DySP Dodia said, “We have already booked and arrested Thakur of Bihar, who is the labour contractor. Now two more men, Saurabh Panchal, the site contractor, and site engineer Jayneel have been named accused in this case. We will arrest them shortly. When we checked the liability of the builder of this site, we found that he was unaware that this work was even taking place.”Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram© The Indian Express Pvt LtdTags:ahmedabad