Tarun Karthick
Sri Vijaya Puram, 06 November 2025
A tragic accident on the Fisheries Department’s Ice Plant in Hut Bay on the afternoon of fifth November has as soon as once more introduced the difficulty of office security beneath scrutiny. A younger man, twenty-six-year-old M. Bhaskar Rao, misplaced his life after falling via the ceiling of the Ice Plant whereas finishing up electrical wiring work. The incident has led to the registration of a case towards the contractor engaged for the work, beneath Section 106(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023, at Hut Bay Police Station.
According to the First Information Report (FIR No. 0073/2025) registered on the night of fifth November 2025, the accident occurred between 3 p.m. and three:15 p.m. The report was lodged by Ok. Haridas, a 27-year-old resident of Farm Tikery, Hut Bay. In his assertion, Haridas stated that on the day of the incident, he was at dwelling when Bhaskar Rao approached him and requested his help with electrical wiring work on the Fisheries Ice Plant. Haridas agreed and accompanied him on a bike to the positioning.
Once contained in the plant, each males climbed up in direction of the ceiling chamber of the generator room utilizing an aluminium ladder. They started shifting over the wood help button (beam) within the ceiling. Within moments, one of many wood helps instantly broke and gave approach. Haridas slipped and commenced to fall; Bhaskar Rao caught his hand to avoid wasting him, however the ceiling was weak and, with none security harness or protecting gear, each males crashed all the way down to the ground under. The influence left Bhaskar Rao grievously injured. According to the FIR, blood began oozing from his ear, and he appeared to have sustained a head harm.
Haridas, although harm himself, instantly phoned his good friend L. Mahesh for assist. With the help of others, each injured males had been taken in an auto-rickshaw to the Primary Health Centre at Hut Bay. Medical employees handled them on arrival, however regardless of efforts to avoid wasting him, Bhaskar Rao succumbed to his accidents throughout therapy. The demise of the 26-year-old has left his household and the area people devastated.
The FIR particularly data that no security gear was supplied to the 2 males whereas they had been engaged within the wiring work contained in the ceiling chamber. It states that the accident occurred as a direct results of the absence of security gear and the collapse of a wood ceiling help. Based on this assertion, the police have registered a case towards the contractor liable for the work.
The demise of Bhaskar Rao raises uncomfortable however vital questions. Was the tragedy solely the fault of the contractor, or ought to duty additionally lie with officers of the Fisheries Department who oversee the Ice Plant? When work is carried out inside a authorities facility, even by outsourced staff, is it not the obligation of departmental authorities to make sure that security protocols are adopted and that staff are geared up with helmets, gloves, harnesses, and different important gear? Allowing anybody to carry out elevated electrical work with out protecting gear displays not solely negligence but in addition an alarming disregard for human life.
The accident additionally highlights a troubling sample of repeated security failures throughout the islands. Earlier this 12 months, Lazarus Kerketta, a daily mazdoor of the Electricity Department, misplaced his life whereas working with out enough protecting gear, prompting demand that the Administration implement strict security norms. That attraction, it seems, went largely unheeded. The lack of yet one more younger employee inside months reveals that classes haven’t been realized and security continues to be handled as elective moderately than necessary.
Accountability needs to be demanded from each the contractor and the Fisheries Department. The Ice Plant is a government-owned facility, and such workplaces needs to be fashions of compliance, not examples of neglect. Why had been two males allowed to climb right into a fragile ceiling chamber with out even probably the most primary security gear? Why did no official from the division confirm that the circumstances had been protected earlier than the work started? And what number of extra lives can be misplaced within the islands earlier than enforcement of security measures turns into a precedence moderately than an afterthought?
For now, the Hut Bay Police have initiated authorized proceedings. But past authorized accountability, this incident calls for a severe introspection from the Administration and all authorities departments. Safety can not stay a paper formality—it should change into a apply embedded in each website, each process, and each degree of supervision. The demise of Bhaskar Rao ought to function a turning level, reminding all involved that behind each neglected helmet or lacking harness stands a human life ready to be protected.
