Gurugram Sandhar Technologies tank deaths: Postmortem today

Gurugram. Three workers who choked on toxic gas inside a chemical tank at a Sandhar Technologies plant in Gurugram’s Dhumaspur were sent in without oxygen masks, safety belts or gas detectors, their families have alleged. A board of doctors began their postmortem at the Civil Hospital on Thursday.

Welder Naresh Yadav, 56, and painters Mohammad Arif, 21, and Anil Jha, 46, collapsed inside the tank around noon on Wednesday. Co-workers raised an alarm and pulled them out. They were rushed to a private hospital in Badshahpur, but none of them survived.

The sharpest charge comes from Naresh’s son, Yogesh Yadav. In his complaint to Bhondsi police, he said his father had taken a day’s leave. He alleged that company officials were angry about it and made his father climb down into the tank to clean it as punishment.

Acting on the family’s complaint, police have booked the company’s owner, plant head, maintenance head and HR head. The FIR is under Sections 106 (death by negligence) and 3(5) (common intention) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.

Police officials said arrests of those found negligent would follow once the preliminary postmortem report comes in and forensic experts finish inspecting the factory. A forensic scene-of-crime team visited the plant on Wednesday. A senior police officer said “all aspects of the incident are being examined”, including the safety arrangements at the unit.

Relatives broke down outside the mortuary on Thursday as they waited for the bodies. Naresh, a native of Badshahpur, had worked at the plant since 2021 and was the main earner of his family. Arif came from Pipraha village in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district and lived in Dhumaspur. Anil came from Barnama village in Nawada district, Bihar, and lived in a rented room in Maruti Kunj.

No public response from Sandhar Technologies on the allegations was available till Thursday afternoon. Jayant Davar founded the Gurugram-based auto parts maker in 1987, and it is listed on the NSE and BSE. It makes locks, mirrors, die-cast and sheet-metal parts, and operator cabins for vehicle makers including Hero MotoCorp and Honda.

Such deaths are not new to Gurugram. In October 2024, three labourers suffocated inside an underground water tank at a construction site in Hans Enclave.