The family and friends of the man from Manipur, who drowned under mysterious circumstances in south Delhi early on Sunday, alleged that Kawilungbou Chawang must have been “running for his life”, which forced him to scale a high wall and scramble though one drain to another.
Through a written application, they have requested police to probe into the incident from a murder point of view. They have dismissed the sequence of events narrated by local eyewitnesses to police.
They pointed to the wall height, the topography of the two drains next to each other and the eyewitnesses’ version that he was drunk and running on the streets before taking the jump.
There are two parallel drains bordering Chirag Dilli village.
The one by the wall is shallow but has been flowing fast due to the recent rains. Only a few feet away is a deep but stagnant drain with several iron rods emerging from it.
Locals said construction work in the stagnant canal has been pending since the Lok Sabha elections.
Azad, an eyewitness, told Deccan Herald, “He jumped the wall and fell in the first drain that swept him away for some distance, but he managed to emerge on the other side.
He then dug his hands into the ground and stepped into the parallel drain, thinking it to be empty land with grass cover,” he said.
The drain where Chawang drowned is covered by a thick film of green algae.
Wikhon, a friend of the victim’s brother Cailaid, said that a visit to the crime scene gives enough hints that it was a mysterious death.
“According to theories floating around, Chawang was drunk and he fell and drowned in the drain. Whether he was drunk, this explanation cannot be true. If he was drunk, the wall was too high for him to scale,” said Wikhon.
He also was unwilling to believe that Chawang would have crossed one drain only to fall into another without any strong reason.
“His body was found in the stagnant drain, which could be reached only after crossing the first drain. If at all he did reach the other drain, he was possibly running for life. Police need to investigate if there was someone chasing him,” he said.
According to locals, they were the ones to reach out to Chawang on hearing his cries for help.
“He was drowning when I reached the spot. My father was lowered into the drain with the help of a rope, but could not help him because of his short height. We then informed police and the fire department, who fished him out,” said another eyewitness Rohit, who claimed to be working at a nearby temple.
Rohit and Azad had been picked up by police for questioning and were let off by late afternoon on Sunday.
