Noida: A fortnight before the 27-year-old software engineer Yuvraj Mehta drowned after his car plunged into a water-filled ditch in Sector 150, Noida, a similar accident at the same spot had exposed the danger. But no corrective action followed.
Moninder Kumar, a Flipkart 10-minute delivery executive, recalls the earlier incident clearly. While delivering a parcel mid-January, Kumar saw a truck go through a partially broken boundary wall along the road and slide into a deep, waterlogged ditch.
“The driver thought it was solid ground and jumped into the ditch. He began drowning… The police were there, watching,” Kumar said. He attempted to pull the driver out, using a rope tied to the truck. The authorities, later, brought in a crane to retrieve the vehicle.
Two weeks later, the same neglected stretch proved deadly.
Yuvraj Mehta was driving home amid dense fog and low visibility Saturday night when his SUV broke through the same damaged wall, plunging into the same ditch. He died after an hour and a half of struggle in the freezing water.
No lessons were learnt from the first accident, according to Kumar. “The damaged wall was never repaired. Nor were barricades or warning signs installed.”
Mehta managed to escape from the submerged vehicle and climbed onto it the night of 16 January. He even used his phone flashlight to signal for help while calling his family.
Moninder Kumar, once again, happened to be passing through the area on a delivery run. Rescue teams, including the police, fire services and the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), had reached the site before him.
“I saw police and SDRF personnel giving reasons for not going into the water. Some said there were steel rods inside, others didn’t know how to swim,” Kumar said.
Frustrated by the delay, Kumar volunteered to enter the ditch. He tied a gamchha around his waist and jumped into the ditch, where he searched for Mehta for nearly 40 minutes.
But by then, it was too late.
Post-mortem findings later confirmed that Mehta died of drowning, caused by asphyxiation, followed by cardiac arrest.
“They were just standing there, staring at the water,” Kumar said. “By the time anything happened, he had already suffocated.”
The death sparked widespread outrage online, with many questioning the role of civic authorities and the slow rescue response. Under this pressure, Noida immediately terminated a junior engineer linked to traffic and road safety oversight. It has since installed barricades and filled smaller pits in the area.
Additional Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) for the Noida Commissionerate, Rajeev Narain Mishra, Monday described the incident as “unfortunate”. Claiming rescue efforts using cranes, boats, and searchlights, he said the authorities made all possible attempts to save Mehta. He, however, admitted that “zero visibility” due to dense fog hampered the rescue efforts.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath also intervened Monday, ordering a Special Investigation Team (SIT) investigation into Mehta’s death and directing the team to submit a report within five days.
On the other hand, the CMO confirmed the removal of IAS Lokesh M., Noida CEO since 2023, from his post, placing him on what it has called a “waitlist”.
According to investigators, the ditch, an excavated part of a construction site, was more than 30 feet deep. For quite some time now, it has remained filled with rainwater, sewage, and groundwater.
Based on a complaint lodged by Mehta’s family, the police have filed an FIR against two developers for culpable homicide and negligence for not securing the site.
“Negligence of safety norms at construction sites would not be tolerated,” the authority has stated, ordering all departments to re-inspect safety measures at ongoing projects.
For Kumar, however, the actions came too late.
“They were present, even during the truck incident. They did nothing,” he said. “The same broken wall killed Yuvraj.”
Kumar told ThePrint that since the incident, he has received phone calls, warning him to stay quiet, and threats that a false case could be filed against him.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” he said, lamenting, “It took a death for barricades to come up…Until someone dies, everything is considered fine.”
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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