Two Dalit men died of asphyxiation, on Thursday, September 7, after inhaling toxic fumes while cleaning a septic tank in the premises of Ordnance Clothing Factory (OCF) in Tamil Nadu’s Avadi. The police have arrested two persons in this regard and OCF has constituted a board of enquiry to look into the deaths of the two workers, who were identified as C Devan (53) and K Moses (39). According to the First Information Report (FIR), Devan and Moses were hired, along with two other workers, by contractor Sampath and supervisor Mano Thirupal, to clean a septic tank in the staff residential quarters of OCF.
On Thursday afternoon, Devan had opened the manhole and entered the nearly 20-feet deep tank when he suddenly fainted and fell into the tank. Moses went inside to help him out, however, he also fainted after inhaling the fumes.
The workers with them alerted Fire and Rescue Personnel, as well as the police, who retrieved them from the tank. While Moses died on the spot, Devan was taken to the hospital where he passed away.
Stating that Devan belonged to the SC community and Moses was a Dalit Christian, the police have slapped relevant sections of Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) (SC/ST (PoA)) Act. The Avadi Tank Factory police have registered a case against Sampath and Mano under sections 304 (punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of IPC, sections 7 (prohibition of persons from engagement or employment for hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks) and 9 (penalty) of The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, and section 3(2)(va) of SC/ST (PoA) Act. Section 3 of SC/ST (PoA) Act deals with punishments for offences and atrocities.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin has announced an ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh from the Chief Minister’s Public Relief Fund to the families of the victims.
Meanwhile, the factory has said that the workers were not hired to clean septic tanks and ordered an inquiry into it. According to The Hindu report, OCF has said that there was no official complaint regarding a blockage in the septic tank and that the cleaning work was done by the two workers “on their own without any intimation to their supervisor or the authorities at OCF”. They had also claimed that blockages in tanks are not done through manual scavenging at OCF.