In a brutal incident, three workers in Punjab’s Moga lost their lives while cleaning a 20-feet deep molasses liquid tank in a cattle feed manufacturing unit at Kot Ise Khan on Monday, April 6.
The police said that the unit owner had the permission to supply animal feed, an essential commodity during curfew but use of labourers to clean molasses tank was not allowed.
The inhuman incident took place at Ekam Industries, a cattle feed manufacturing unit. Of the three dead, two were brothers.
Police said that one worker initially turned unconscious and died after he inhaled poisonous gas while cleaning the tank. The two others also succumbed when they went to save him.
The three deceased were identified as Jaspreet Singh and Satnam Singh from village Khosa Kotla and Surjit Singh from village Jaaniya.
All the three were aged between 25 to 30.
The unit owner Sanjiv Kumar has been booked in an FIR for death of the workers due to negligence and for violating curfew orders by employing laborers to clean the tanks. Police is yet to arrest him until the filing of the report concludes.1
‘One of three laborers had entered tank to clean it and when he did not return for a long time, the other two went. They also died inhaling poisonous gas. There was fourth laborer present on the spot too but he has been saved,’ Dharamkot DSP Yadwinder Singh said.
FIR against the owner was registered under the sections 304-A (causing death due to negligence) and 188 (disobedience to the order duly promulgated by public servant) of IPC at Kot Ise Khan police station on the complaint of Sukhjinder Singh, third brother of two deceased.
