Pune: Two people died late Wednesday night in Nigdi Pradhikaran after they entered an underground cable chamber belonging to BSNL, incidentally the very same duct in which three contract workers succumbed to fumes nearly a year ago.The deceased have been identified as Manoj Baburao Shinde (26) and Amol Shinde (19), both from Hingoli. Officials said they were pulled out of the 10-foot deep chamber around midnight by the fire brigade. A fire brigade official confirmed to TOI that the deceased were found without any safety equipment.“They were declared dead on arrival at the hospital,” said Rajendra Wabale, dean of Yashwantrao Chavan Memorial Hospital in Pimpri.Mahesh Bansode, senior inspector of Nigdi police station, said Wednesday night’s incident was similar to what happened inside the chamber on Aug 15 last year. “We have now registered a case of accidental death. Officials from BSNL are being investigated,” Bansode said, adding that the bodies have been handed over to families.The National Commission for Scheduled Castes and National Commission for Safai Karmacharis took cognisance of the matter. On Thursday, notices were sent to chief of the Pimpri Chinchwad municipal corporation and Pune district collector, urging them to investigate the incident and to submit reports on action taken against those responsible for the two deaths.Bansode said Manoj and Amol were daily-wage workers and their families were not aware of what they did for a living.Sunil Manjhi, assistant general manager of BSNL, told TOI the two men were not BSNL employees and that the telecom company was unaware of why or how they had entered the chamber.The chamber was constructed 15-20 years ago and was being used as a space for optical fibre and other underground cable networks.“BSNL gets its work done through local contractors across the country. I have asked our local contractor for the area and he too denied deploying anyone for any type of work at the site,” Manjhi said. He added that the chamber was not currently in use by BSNL and did not need to be opened for any work.Manjhi, who said he took charge of the area in June this year, said BSNL has several such chambers across the city, some located 200 metres apart, making it impractical to monitor all of them. About what preventive steps were taken after the three deaths last year, Manjhi said he wasn’t aware of any measures as he had taken charge only two months ago. He added that the chambers were made of concrete and required a set of specific skills to open.Fireman Vivek Patil said: “Local police reported the incident to us around 11.56pm on Wednesday. Our team reached the spot within a minute. Initially, one person was spotted stuck inside the chamber, tangled in cable and surrounded by mud. We pulled him out and then police informed us that there was another person inside. He too was pulled out. The chamber was filled with cabling.”Another similarity between the two incidents was both occurred on public holidays, when BSNL employees, usually deployed for such jobs, are on leave.The three workers who died last year had entered the chamber on Independence Day, again without any safety equipment. They died of suffocation while attempting to set up a new fibre connection. Police had registered a case of culpable homicide against the contractor and an unknown official.One official from PCMC’s fire brigade department said during the monsoon, the chamber accumulates mud and rainwater, a mix which the official said can generate toxic gases. “It’s not safe to enter these chambers without safety gear,”Residents said authorities should’ve put in place safety measures after the three deaths.“We don’t know who operates this chamber, but authorities should not have responded after what happened last year,” said Vaishali Chavan, who lives nearby. “We didn’t even know people were working in there. We got to know about the incident after the fire brigade turned up,” she said.Another resident, Hambirrao Chavan, said the chamber shouldn’t have been opened after dark. “I don’t understand why they were let into that duct at night. This is a tragedy. That chamber must have been full of toxic gas,” Chavan added.
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