Three arrested for deaths of manual scavengers in manhole

BENGALURU: Two Ramky Infrastructure Limited employees and a subcontractor of the company were arrested in connection with the deaths of three manual scavengers who died on March 7 in a manhole on Kaggadasapura main road while working on the World Bank funded Karnataka Municipal Reforms Project for laying sewerage lines.
Those arrested are K Babu Reddy, assistant general manager and in-charge of Bengaluru projects, Vemula Anjaneyulu, sub-contractor and NT Reddy, manager.
Police had earlier said they were waiting to arrest the contractors before looking into the role of BWSSB officials in the tragedy.
The case was registered in Byappanahalli Police station under IPC Section 304 – punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder and Section 8 of Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Rehabilitation Act, 2013.
This is the first time a case under the non-bailable section 304 is being booked for the deaths of such workers, and the punishment can go up to 10 years. All these years, police registered cases under section 304-A (causing death by negligence), which is not only bailable but depends heavily on eye-witnesses—lack of whom cases close without conviction.
With not a single person punished for the 60 reported deaths in nine years in Karnataka, activists fighting for the cause have been arguing that the government must change its attitude towards the issue.