Six drown in tomato pulp pit

Lucknow, July 7 : In a bizarre accident, six labourers drowned in a pit filled with tomato pulp at a ketchup manufacturing unit here late Wednesday.

"First a woman labourer slipped into the deep pit meant to store all the waste product, following which five men jumped into the pit to rescue her...but all of them died," District Magistrate Anil Kumar Sagar told reporters.

The accident took place in the industrial area of Rajajipuram.

"According to witnesses, as soon as the woman slipped into the pit, one of her colleagues took a plunge in bid to save her; and the rest followed one after the other," he said.

The fire brigade was summoned and the six bodies were pulled out of the thick paste in the nearly 10-feet deep pit, he added.

The factory owner has been arrested, Sagar said. He added that "due compensation would be paid by the employers to the families of the dead".