Two Children Die as Sector 83 Water Tank Collapses

GURUGRAM: A four-year-old girl and a one-year-old boy died after a newly constructed cement water tank collapsed in a slum cluster in Sector 83 on Friday night, police said. Kherki Daula police have registered a case of causing death by negligence against the contractor who built the tank and are searching for him.

The girl's father, Sharif Ali, 45, alleged in his complaint that the tank was built with substandard material and filled with water before the structure was ready for use. Police said about 60 to 70 jhuggis stand at the site, looked after by a contractor identified as Ajay and his family, who are from Nadia in West Bengal.

According to the complaint, the cemented tank measured around 10 feet by 5 feet and stood about five feet high. It was put up three to four days before the incident. A plastic tank had earlier served the residents. On Friday, the contractor allegedly filled the new tank to check it and told people they could start using it.

Sharif, a mason who has been living in a rented shanty in Sector 83 for about a year, said his wife Rubina had taken their daughter Sumaiya to the tank to bathe her when the wall gave way. Another woman bathing her young son was also trapped. Locals pulled the victims from the debris. Sumaiya was taken to a nearby hospital, where doctors declared her dead. The women suffered injuries and are stable, police said.

FIR, contractor search and what police say

Police said they received information around 10 pm and reached the cluster. Sumaiya's family had placed her body in an ambulance and were preparing to leave for their native place in West Bengal. Officers intercepted the ambulance, sent the body to Civil Hospital, Sector 10, for examination, and later kept it at the district mortuary for postmortem. The body was handed over after the postmortem for last rites.

An FIR was registered under Section 106 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita for causing death by negligence. A senior officer said teams are working to find the contractor, who remains at large, and are also trying to reach the second child's family. The complainant's family had alleged that another child was hurt; police later learnt the child had died but could not immediately contact that family.

Officers said further investigation is under way to verify how the tank was built, when it was filled, and what led to the collapse. The case turns on alleged negligence in construction and early use of a structure meant to store water for a dense jhuggi belt near a private housing society.

For residents of informal settlements along the Sector 83 belt, shared water tanks are often the only storage option when supply is irregular. The deaths have put a sharp focus on who builds such tanks, who checks them, and how quickly police can locate contractors who operate without a clear paper trail. Police have not named any municipal agency as a party to the FIR; the case, as registered, targets the contractor named in the complaint.