8-Year-Old Dies Under Pitch Roller in Manesar

GURUGRAM: An eight-year-old boy died on Friday afternoon after a 750-kilogram pitch roller ran over him at a cricket training academy in Kakrola, IMT Manesar, police said. Kherki Daula police have opened inquest proceedings under Section 194 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita. The family has not alleged negligence or a criminal act, officers said.

Police identified the child as Akash Kumar. He had gone to the academy with his elder brother Neel and two other children. The roller, used to flatten practice pitches and the ground, was standing on the premises. Around 1 pm, according to investigators, the four children climbed onto the machine. One of them switched on its miniature circuit breaker. The roller started moving. No adult was supervising the equipment at that time, police said.

The children then ran the roller back and forth. Akash fell in front of it and came under the wheels. He suffered fatal injuries at the spot. The other three children left the academy. Neel went home and told the family that his brother had been hurt. Relatives began looking for the child at the ground, not knowing how badly he had been injured.

Players who arrived for practice found Akash lying on the ground and raised an alert. The family arranged a vehicle and took him to a nearby private hospital. Doctors declared him dead on arrival. Relatives said they learnt of the death nearly an hour after the accident, and that the child had lain at the spot for some time before he was moved.

Inquest, not an FIR

A Kherki Daula officer said the family, in a written statement, did not raise a complaint of negligence or suspect a crime. On that basis police treated the death as accidental and began the Section 194 inquiry, the procedure used for unnatural deaths when no first information report is registered. A post-mortem was done on Friday. The body was handed over to the family after the autopsy.

Akash’s family is originally from Nalanda district in Bihar and has lived in Gurugram for about two decades. The household has seven children. His maternal cousin, Vikash Kumar, said Neel had first described only an injury, which is why the search at the academy started late.

Police have not named a coach or operator as an accused. They have not registered a case of causing death by negligence. They have not said, in the Friday account, how the roller was stored or who was in charge of it when the children climbed on. Section 194 requires the officer to send a report to the magistrate with statements, the post-mortem and notes from the scene.

The other children, including Neel, are witnesses in the inquest, not accused. Police have not released their ages. The hospital that received Akash has not been named in the police account beyond a nearby private facility.

Until that report goes to the magistrate, the official record is this: an eight-year-old died under a pitch roller at a Manesar academy around 1 pm on Friday; the machine started after a child switched on the MCB; no adult was at the equipment; the family has not sought a criminal case; Kherki Daula police are inquiring into an unnatural death.