A 29-year-old police constable died after the two-wheeler he was riding plunged into an open trench that was dug to build a culvert on the Kalpanapattu-Ponnappanthangal Koot Road near Nemili town, Ranipet, on Tuesday. Police said M. Elagovan, after work at Vishnu Kanchi police station in Kancheepuram, was returning to his house in Pudur village near Nemili town when his two-wheeler rammed a mud mound near the open trench across the narrow stretch. In the impact, he fell into the four-foot-deep trench. The incident happened around 1 a.m. on Tuesday.
About five hours later, a few farmers bound for paddy fields spotted the constable in the trench. They alerted Nemili police, who arrived at the spot and rushed Elagovan to the Government Taluk Hospital in Walajah. Doctors at the hospital, however, declared that he was brought dead.
A case has been registered.
Classified as Other District Roads (ODR) by the State Highways, the stretch is poorly lit and registers low traffic.
Police said the trench was dug up for the construction of a new culvert across the stretch to prevent inundation.
