IISc guard crushed to death in Bengaluru as main gate falls on him

Tension gripped at Indian Institute of Science (IISc) premise after a security guard was killed and another escaped with injuries following a sliding gate fell on them. The incident took place on Sunday afternoon and the group of securities stopped the ambulance when the body was being shifted to MS Ramaiah hospital for the postmortem.

The deceased has been identified as Gautam Biswal (27) a native of Odisha. He was working as a gatekeeper at the premise for three years. Anil Kumar from, (24) from Bihar and is currently being treated in a private hospital. Gautam was unmarried and he was living in the IISc premise along with his colleague.

Sadashivanagar police who inspected the accident spot said that the incident took place at 1.30 pm. The gate which weighs about 150 kg fell on Biswal killing him on the spot due to head injuries.

The police said that the gate was being replaced with a new one and the construction work has been going on from the last three months. The substandard quality of work is blamed for the mishap and a case of negligence has been filed against the contractor and further investigations are on.

The incident has sparked tension in the area for a while before the police had to rush in to calm the situation. Speaking on the condition of anonymity an eye witness said, "This was a gate which operates on a bearing to gather support, there are two gates and they should not be opened completely as they would fall due to lack of support."

"Based on a complaint by Yudister Nayak, one of the security guard we are probing the case and a supervisor who was at the spot has been detained for the questioning," a police officer added.

Speaking to TNIE, Chandrashekar, a relative of Biswal said, "Biswal had returned from his home town a week ago after attending his elder brother’s marriage. His parents had called him in the morning and he spoke for about 10 minutes before he came for duty."

The guards had earlier complained to the authority about the gate which lacked a stopper as well as the lock system. But Rajan, a registrar who had received the complaints had ignored to instruct the engineers. Another security Yudistir Nayak who went for the rescue of Gautam had also had injuries on his shoulder, a woman staff who is also an eye witness said.