Mumbai, Dec 23 (IANS) A five-year-old boy died after falling into an open manhole in northeast Mumbai’s Mankhurd suburb, in a repeat of a similar accident barely two days in the same area, police said Wednesday.
A frantic search was launched for the boy, Shahnawaz Shaah, who was reported missing from Indira Janata Nagar area of the suburb Tuesday afternoon, said Samajwadi Party member Naseem Siddiqui who supervised the operations.

One of the members of the search party happened to peep inside an open manhole and saw Shahnawaz’s hands above the muck and gutter water, said Siddiqui.

With the help of locals, the boy was pulled out of the gutter, which was five feet deep, and rushed to a nearby hospital. But he was pronounced dead, he added.

Mankhurd police early Wednesday sent the body for an autopsy and its report was awaited, a police official said.

Siddiqui said several manhole covers have been removed in the Mankhurd area since work to lay blocks and repair old gutters was taken up in the past couple of months. This is the second instance in two days of a child dying after falling into a gutter in Mankhurd area.

On Sunday, three-year-old Ayub Salaam fell into a 20-foot deep gutter and his body has not yet been found yet despite efforts by the fire brigade and other agencies. Since it was a main gutter, it is feared his body may have been washed into the Arabian Sea.

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–qn/pg/vt