ELECTION 99
US EDITION
COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Search Rediff

Girl killed in freak mishap at Delhi airport

An eight-year-old girl was crushed to death and two others injured when an escalator came apart after passengers panicked at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi early this morning.

''It's really unfortunate. The matter is being investigated as to how the escalator got disengaged,'' Airport Director H S Bains toldUNI.

Passengers were coming down the escalator into the arrival area after alighting from a flight that had come in from Dubai at 0215 hours when the tragedy occurred.

According to Bains, a passenger's baggage had got struck as the escalator moved down. As the passenger attempted to remove the obstruction, the baggage got entangled in the escalator.

The people moving down tried to jostle for safety and in the melee, the girl fell and her head was trapped in the escalator. It took more than 25 minutes to get the trapped girl out of the escalator by which time she was dead, airport sources said.

The girl's grandfather Parmanand Jethani, a businessman in Dubai, complained of utter negligence by the airport staff. ''The insensitivity of the airport authorities has hurt me more than anything else. For about two hours no one came even to offer any consolation,'' Jethani who was taking his granddaughter to his hometown in Jodhpur said.

The media was also being deliberately kept out from the airport and Jethani said he was able to get in touch with the press only because of help from some customs staff.

UNI

Tell us what you think of this report