Days after the death of a software engineer in Noida, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday flagged the lack of accountability and said the incident was a direct consequence of the culture of greed and disrespect to other living beings being propagated in India.
Yuvraj Mehta (27), who worked in Gurugram, was returning home when his car fell into a water-filled pit near a construction site on the night of January 16. He died after frantically pleading for help for around two hours.
In a post on X, Gandhi said, "Roads kill, bridges kill, fires kill, water kills, pollution kills, corruption kills, indifference kills." "India's urban collapse isn't about lack of money, technology, or solutions. It's about the lack of accountability. TINA: There Is No Accountability," the leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha said.
Gandhi also shared a video in which eyewitnesses said timely action could have saved Mehta. In the video, Mehta's father lamented that there were several people at the accident site, with some making videos, but none of them acted to save his son.
In another video posted on X, the Congress leader said a culture of greed and disrespect to other living beings is being propagated in India.
"The air we breathe, the water we are forced to drink, and the crumbling infrastructure around us are the consequences of this greed. Yuvraj Mehta's death is a direct consequence of this culture," Gandhi said.
"How we react to his death, how we react to the pain of other people, how we react to the pain and suffering of other people, is going to determine the type of society we live in.
"What one needs to understand is that the direct consequence of treating other people badly is that you will be treated badly," he said in his video message.
In his post accompanying the video, Gandhi said the problem is not just corruption, but also the "addiction to greed that has taken root in society and has swallowed up accountability in Indian governance".
The Uttar Pradesh government on Monday removed the Noida Authority CEO and ordered an SIT probe into Mehta's death, amid mounting outrage over the incident and allegations of official and developer negligence.
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) will investigate the circumstances leading to the accident and submit its report within five days.
Mehta's body was recovered after a prolonged search operation involving the fire department, police, State Disaster Response Force and National Disaster Response Force.
The post-mortem conducted on Monday revealed that he died due to asphyxia followed by cardiac arrest, police said. The report noted that his nose was blocked with mud and water, indicating drowning.
Mehta's last rites were performed later in the day in Haridwar in the presence of his father and other family members.
Local residents staged protests over the weekend, accusing authorities and developers of ignoring repeated complaints about waterlogging, lack of barricading and absence of reflectors near the drain and the construction site.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
