Times of India: Mumbai: Sunday,
March 09, 2014.
Commander
Kuntal Wadhwa (42) was escaping from the carbon dioxide unit chamber on a
Kolkata-class warship at the Mumbai Port Trust after discovering a gas leak
there on Friday when, in his haste, he banged against the iron doorframe of the
compartment. He suffered severe injuries on the left side of his forehead, eye
and face.
Wadhwa's
family cremated his body at Chandanwadi in south Mumbai after a navy guard of
honour in the presence of senior officers on Saturday.
The Yellow
Gate police station registered a case of accidental death. The police said they
were awaiting the inquiry report from the navy on the cause of the accident on
Yard 12701, a stealth guided-missile destroyer that is yet to be commissioned.
"According
to the doctors at JJ Hospital, Wadhwa suffered severe injuries on the eye, face
and head, which could be the prime reason for his death," inspector
Pandhurang Dokhe said. "He may have started running, fearing a major
mishap."
The report
provided to the police by the Mazgaon Docks Ltd (MDL) said Wadhwa, other navy
personnel and MDL officials had been inspecting the ship when the incident
happened.
Wadhwa had
noticed gas leaking from two connectors of the pipeline after checking a valve.
After
providing with immediate medical assistance onboard Wadhwa was rushed to Saint
George Hospital at 12.45pm and he died around 1.17pm while undergoing
treatment.
Navy
officials said prima facie Wadhwa died because of suffocation and they could
not comment on whether head injuries had a role to play until they received the
autopsy report from JJ Hospital where the post-mortem was done. There had been
over 45 personnel, from Navy and the Mazgaon Dock Limited (MDL) onboard when
the incident occurred during the machinery trails of the INS Kolkata class ship
at the Mumbai Port Trust (Mb PT). In the statement, the MDL worker Aslam Kazi
(51) who had suffocation of inhaling the gas said, I felt uncomfortable while
crossing the compartment. Immediately I informed my seniors and I was rushed to
the hospital at Prince Aly Khan Hospital."
The navy
initiated a board of inquiry and asked the Mazgaon Docks Ltd for a report on
the valve malfunctioning that cost their senior officer's life. Wadhwa was a
jovial person and was close to all among his batch and was the topper. He was a
M Tech engineer while his wife is a teacher at Navy school. At the time of
incident Wadhwa's wife and children had gone for a tour along with other women group
to Thane," a friend of Wadhwa family told TOI on Saturday. While another
close friends in the Navy said, "They have asked him not to join the ship,
which is yet to be commissioned, as they feared its machinery quality."
330 deaths
since 2000
The ministry
of defence in reply to activist Chetan Kothari's RTI query filed on September
gave the information that 330 navy personnel had died of unnatural causes from
2000 to November 2013.
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