A 25-year-old Dalit man from Avadi in Tamil Nadu died of asphyxiation, on Sunday, August 11, while cleaning an underground sewer. The deceased was identified as Gopinath of Arunthathipuram, and he worked as a contract employee for the Avadi City Municipal Corporation.

Four contractual workers of the Avadi City Municipal Corporation were removing a blockage from an underground sewer in Kurinji Street in Avadi when, according to the police, Gopinath descended into the sewer and found it difficult to breathe after inhaling toxic gas, falling unconscious.

The Tamil Nadu Fire and Rescue services were alerted and a team reached immediately and pulled Gopinath out of the underground sewer. He was rushed to a nearby government hospital but doctors declared him dead. Later, his body was sent to the Kilpauk Medical College hospital for autopsy.

Speaking to TNM, Avadi police said that a First Information Report (FIR) has been registered under section 105 (punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), and other relevant sections. However, it has not been classified as a manual scavenging and the details of those listed as the accused has not been disclosed.

According to The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, Section 2(g) defines a “manual scavenger” as a person who manually cleans, carries, disposes of, or handles human excreta in any manner in an insanitary latrine or in an open drain or a pit into which the human excreta from the insanitary latrines is disposed of, or on a railway track or other such spaces or premises. This does not include a sewer or a septic tank. 

The Act separately defines “hazardous cleaning” of a sewer or septic tank as “manual cleaning” by a worker without the employer providing them with protective gear, other cleaning devices, and without following safety precautions. It also states that a person engaged or employed to clean excreta with the help of “devices” or “protective gear” will not be considered 'manual scavenger'. This narrow and ambiguous definition is utilised by employers to hire workers to do manual scavenging.

Read: Union govt says no manual scavenging deaths in 2023, activists slam misleading data 

(With IANS inputs)