KATHMANDU, SEPTEMBER 26
The body of Ujwal Vishwakarma, 10, was found many kilometres downstream of the Bagmati River at the border of Lalitpur and Makawanpur district. He had fallen into an open sewer on the middle of the road at Kapan, Kathmandu.
Police at Ghusel area of Bagmati Rural Municipality in Lalitpur had identified the body after some locals saw the floating body last evening. The boy had fallen into the drain on the evening of September 21. The body was identified on the basis of the school uniform he was wearing at the time of accident as it had already decomposed, according to police. The body was later sent to Patan Hospital for post-mortem.
Ujwal was merrily returning from school on the ill-fated day playing in the rain as it had started pouring at around 3:00pm that day. "He was jumping on the water-logged road and moving towards the ditch," said an eyewitness. The eyewitness noticed that the boy was unaware of the ditch filled with water. "I shouted at him to stop, but the ecstatic boy did not listen to me and he fell into the ditch in no time," said the eyewitness, who works at a bakery shop. "Other people who noticed my shouting gathered around the ditch, but the young boy disappeared within a fraction of seconds."
The public soon informed the police about the incident.
However, they couldn't rescue the boy. The ditch lies on the middle of the road on the bordering area of Kathmandu Metropolitan City Ward No 6 and Budhanilkantha Ward No 10. There was a stream below the road a few years ago, which has now been converted into a drainage hume pipe.
Earlier, the government had started black-topping the road before monsoon, but stopped it abruptly after the onset of monsoon without bothering to cover the ditch or put a fence around it. Three people have died after falling into uncovered ditches and manholes inside Kathmandu valley in the last five years, according to police records.
A version of this article appears in the print on September 27 2021, of The Himalayan Times.
