A 27-year-old contract worker at Karnataka’s Raichur Thermal Power Station fell into the furnace and died late on Thursday night. Deepak Naik, who hailed from Odisha, was working overtime on Thursday when the incident occurred.

At around 11.30 pm on Thursday, Deepak was working in the boiler room at the power station. Deepak’s job was to pick out stones and particles from the conveyor belt, which transported the coal to the furnace in the boiler room. Deepak was using a claw attached to a metal rod to pick out stones and other particles from the conveyor belt. However, the claw got stuck to the rubber mat on the conveyor belt and Deepak tried to pull it out. However, while he was doing that, the rod got stuck to Deepak’s belt and he got pulled onto the conveyor belt due to the speed at which the belt was moving.

Deepak was dragged onto the belt and with no supervisor around to help him out, Deepak fell into the furnace and died due to burn injuries.

Speaking to TNM, Ramesh, the investigating officer at Raichur’s Shakti Nagar Police Station says that Deepak’s supervisor Ajith Kumar and the engineer in-charge – Venkatesh, were both absent from the area when the incident occurred.

“Deepak Naik was working overtime. He was asked to work late but none of his supervisors were there. He was not given any safety equipment. There was no one around when he screamed for help. By the time the other employees could reach Deepak, he had already fallen into the furnace,” Ramesh said.

Deepak was supposed to have been given a helmet, gloves, boots and a jumpsuit to protect himself from the heat. Had Deepak been given the jumpsuit, the rod would not have gotten stuck to his belt and he would not have been pulled by the belt, police say. 

“The rod is a dangerous piece of equipment to have. The claw attached to it gets stuck to the conveyor belt a lot. Ideally, this work should not have been delegated to a person but should have been mechanised. When employees are working, the supervisor must be present, especially in the boiler room, which is the riskiest place in the power plant. If there were people to drag Deepak out of the belt, he could have been saved,” officer Ramesh said.  

Deepak’s body was fished out of the furnace immediately and rushed to Raichur district hospital, where he was declared brought dead. The Shakti Nagar Police have booked engineer in-charge Venkatesh, Deepak’s supervisor Amith Kumar and Prince Thermal India Pvt Ltd, the contracting company, which employed Deepak under sections 287 (negligent conduct with respect to machinery) and 304 (criminal negligence) of the IPC.

The police were yet to make any arrests in the case at the time of writing.