Around 20-25 people gathered around the pit to take photographs of the fallen man and the motorbike on their mobile phones, but not one made an effort to rescue the victim or call the police, said 32-year-old Shivani, a passerby who was the first to call the police about the 25-year-old.
She said that upon discovering the man, banking telecaller Kamal Dhyani, and his motorcycle lying inside the pit dug by the Delhi Jal Board in west Delhi’s Janakpuri on Friday morning, she pleaded others for help, but to no avail.
“I constantly pleaded with them to call the police for help. But they turned a deaf ear to my request and continued taking videos and photographs. Being a mother, I thought the man’s mother must be waiting for him at home. So, I dialled 112 and informed the police about the matter, despite initially thinking against it to avoid legal formalities,” said Shivani, a homemaker.
A resident of Sagarpur in west Delhi, Shivani was walking her son, a Class 1 student, to Andhra School around 7.45am on Friday, when she discovered Dhyani lying inside the pit. She said that the motorcycle was over his body and since it was getting late for school, she dropped off her child and returned.
The woman claimed that she first informed a security guard present at the main gate of a nearby residential society, and asked him to inform the police, but he refused. “I moved ahead on the road and saw three more guards at another gate. They also turned down my request. Thereafter, I returned to the pit and saw a rickshaw puller, who screamed for help as soon as I informed him about the incident… Many people gathered but nobody informed the police,” she said.
The woman claimed that she stayed at the incident spot for nearly five minutes after informing the police about the incident and then left as she had to board a bus to return home. She had already left when she received multiple calls from police officers, asking her about her location and the events leading to her spotting the man.
Shivani said her husband, Neeraj, works in an information technology (IT) company.