Boy, 9, dies after getting trapped in doors of moving Delhi lift

‘It started moving upward, probably while the boy was alighting it on the ground floor, before the collapsible gate closed’

A nine-year-old boy died allegedly after getting stuck in a lift inside a building in Delhi, India.

The boy, identified by his first name Ashish, lived in the capital city with his parents, who work in the laundry business.

The incident took place on 24 March in West Delhi's Vikaspuri area when the child accompanied his mother, Rekha, while she collected and returned clothes to residents in the building.

On Friday, Ms Rekha, identified only by her first name, took the stairs and asked her son to stay back at the shop, the police said.

However, Ashish decided to take the elevator in order to follow her and got stuck.

He reportedly tried to enter the lift when its doors were closing and got stuck in the middle of the gate. The lift went up and the boy suffered serious injuries.

“My wife went to the first, second and third floors of the building using the staircase, collected clothes, and returned to our shop," the boy's father, Ramesh, was quoted by Hindustan Times as saying.

"She asked me about our son. I told her he had followed her to the building.

"They peeped inside the lift from a small glass panel in the lift’s safety wooden door and found his legs dangling."

A team of police officers got the boy out of the lift with the help of locals and rushed him to the hospital.

Officers suspect the boy was trapped inside the elevator for nearly 30 minutes.

The boy was declared dead on arrival at the hospital.

Ghanshyam Bansal, the deputy commissioner of police (west), said prima facie it appears that the lift malfunctioned due to technical issues.

"It started moving upward, probably while the boy was alighting it on the ground floor, before the collapsible gate closed," he said.

The police said a private company was hired for the maintenance of the life and the latest work was done nearly six months ago.

“The exact sequence of events leading to death can be ascertained only when the mechanical inspection of the elevator, which is being conducted by experts, is concluded," the deputy commissioner said.

Ashish was in fourth grade and was about to resume his classes from April. “Despite our low income, we gave our best for his education. We wanted him to become a government officer,” Mr Ramesh said.

Authorities have registered a case of negligent conduct with respect to machinery and death by negligence against unknown persons.

Earlier in February, a 15-year-old boy died after he accidentally slipped and fell into an elevator shaft on the second floor of a factory in Delhi.