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Updated: Jul 21, 2019 03:52 IST

A 15-year-old boy died on Saturday after he and the bicycle he was riding fell into a drain in Ghaziabad’s Sarvodaya Nagar. The incident took place at around 2pm. His body was found three hours later after extensive search and rescue operations by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), police officers and locals.

According to the police, the incident took place when the boy, Dipanshu Kumar was returning from his school in nearby Vijay Nagar to his house in Shiv Puri area. When he was crossing the drain on his bicycle, he slipped into an open portion of the drain, which was earlier covered with concrete slabs but had recently been uncovered by staff of the Ghaziabad municipal corporation for the annual monsoon cleaning.

Initially, the search team found the boy’s bicycle, which was identified by his grandfather Asha Ram.

“Upon the recovery of the bicycle, the teams doubled efforts to look for him. He was discovered several hours later. The drain is about eight-10 feet deep. The boy was rushed to a government hospital where he was declared brought dead. His family has denied an autopsy. However, we are open to probe and will register an FIR if his family approaches us with a police complaint,” Shlok Kumar, superintendent of police (city), said.

Dipanshu’s body was fished out about 400 metres from the spot where he is suspected to have slipped into the drain.

The drain is stated to be about 8-10 feet deep and covered with concrete slabs, besides having a small, non-metalled side road for people to commute. According to sources, there was heavy rain on Saturday afternoon after which the side road and the drain were filled with water and it was not visible where the drain was open and where it was covered, which is what probably led to the incident.

“Our staff had opened the slabs last week for cleaning of drain. This was done after the local councilor had pursued us regularly. The drain was earlier covered with slabs and locals use it as a pathway. The boy slipped into the open portion from where the slabs were removed. The drain is long and receives a lot of water from several nearby localities,” Sarita Singh, the Ghaziabad municipal corporation’s zonal in-charge of Vijay Nagar, said.

A committee comprising three senior officials has now been constituted and a report has been sought within 24 hours to ascertain alleged negligence of staff and officers.

“The incident is tragic and we will take strict action. I have constituted a committee of officers, including the additional municipal-commissioner, the general manager (water works) and the chief engineer, to submit a report within 24 hours. The report will highlight if there was any negligence of staff or supervising officers of the area. We will take strict action,” Dinesh Chandra, the Ghaziabad municipal commissioner, said.

There have been repeated incidents of children falling in open drains in different areas of Ghaziabad city.

In October last year, a 10-year-old girl had died after falling into a small gap between a cemented pipe and a culvert wall above a drain on a footpath in Indirapuram while returning home with her father. It had taken the NDRF team 14 hours to locate her body had the drain was choked with plastic items, garbage and liquor bottles, etc.