Sewer cleaning deaths: Hotel owner, manager held in Guj

Police have arrested the owner and the manager of a Vadodara-based hotel, where seven people died last week while cleaning a sewer, an official said on Wednesday.

On Saturday, seven people, including four sanitation workers, died of asphyxiation while cleaning sewer of a hotel at Fartikui village in Dabhoi tehsil of Gujarat's Vadodara district.

Three employees of the hotel were also among those killed.

The hotel owner, Hasan Abbas Boraniya, and his brother Imdad Boraniya, who is its manager, were arrested from their residence in the city late Tuesday night, the police official said.

The two were absconding since the incident last week and several police teams were formed to trace them, he said.

Meanwhile, local Congress leaders submitted a memorandum to the district collector, demanding that the hotel owner be booked on charges of murder.

They held a demonstration outside the collector's office over their demand.

The Congress workers claimed they had earlier brought to the notice of the authorities concerned that the hotel was running illegally but no steps were taken against its owner.