Nine-year-old girl, her 10-month-old brother drown in drain outside home in Noida

NOIDA: A nine-year-old girl and her 10-month-old brother died after falling into a drain in Sector 85 on Monday evening. The family of the children said the kids were playing outside their house when they slipped into the drain. No police complaint was lodged by the family till late on Tuesday evening.
Rubina and Sumit, the family said, would have lived had the drain been covered.Officials of the Noida Authority, however, cited the National Green Tribunal’s (NGT) orders to say that stormwater drains cannot be covered due to the cleaning purposes.

Shambhu Kumar, their father, told TOI that his two children were playing outside the house around 4.15pm. “The two had been playing for a long time. So, I went to check on them but couldn't find them nearby. After a brief search, I realised that the kids had fallen into the drain near our house,” he said.
Without wasting a minute, Shambhu jumped into the swollen drain.
“After a little struggle and with help from the neighbours, we managed to get both of them out. We rushed them to Felix Hospital in Sector 137,” said the father, a daily wager originally from Bihar. The family’s worst fears came true when doctors at the hospital declared the children dead on arrival. “By the time the family reached the hospital with the two children around 5.45pm, the two were already dead,” said Dr DK Gupta, the Felix Hospital chairperson.
Family members said they wouldn’t have had to see this day had the drain been covered. The two kids had three siblings.
However, SC Mishra, a senior official of the Noida Authority’s public health department, said that in keeping with the green tribunal’s orders, no stormwater drain can be covered.
An order by the NGT bars the authorities from covering stormwater drains because they need to be cleaned regularly.
Activists have suggested that the authorities should build barricades around such drains to avoid accidents in the future
Police said they got to know about the deaths from the hospital management. “No complaint has been filed by the family yet. However, a probe has been initiated,” a senior officer at Phase-2 police station said. “The bodies were handed over to the family on Tuesday afternoon after an autopsy.”