7-year-old crawls out safely after falling into open sewer while playing

A seven-year-old boy, who had fallen into an open sewer in southwest Delhi’s Rajokri on Thursday, managed to crawl out safely, police said on Friday.

The boy, identified by a school teacher of the MCD School in Rajokri as a Class 3 student and a resident of Rajokri village, a senior officer said.

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He said the matter came to light on Thursday at 1:15 pm, when the police were informed that a child had fallen into a sewer near Rajouri.

With this information, a police team, along with the other rescue agencies, rushed to the spot.

After initial efforts of the police officer to locate the child failed, the PCR staff alerted the Vasant Kunj South police station to initiate a search operation, the officer mentioned.

As part of the investigation, the officers scanned the CCTV footage installed in the vicinity and along the sewer line that was closely reviewed.

It showed that two boys were running near the sewer, one of them appeared to have fallen into it. However, both children were later seen running away from a point further down the sewer line, suggesting that the boy had managed to escape from it, the officer added.

“About 20 feet from the spot where the child fell, the sewer was found open, which might have enabled him to escape. However, the child was not immediately identified by the residents,” the officer said.

To trace the boy, who apparently had fallen into the sewer, the police circulated the CCTV footage across local social media groups, including the residents of Rajokri, nearby schools, and adjacent police stations.

When questioned by the beat staff how he fell into the sewer, the boy said he had gone out to enjoy the rain with a friend who resides in the same locality and studied in the same school. As the sewer opening was not visible to them due to rainwater flooding the area, he accidentally fell into it.

He managed to come out safe after a short distance and later returned home without informing anyone about the incident, the officer said.

In a statement, the police confirmed that the child is safe with no injury.