After having been accused of the death of 25-year-old Arunkumar, who died on Tuesday due to the severity of toxic gases while trying to rescue his brother during the cleaning of the septic tank, the Express Avenue Mall in Chennai will pay a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to the family of the deceased.

On the wee hours of Tuesday morning, a contractor named Dhandapani had hired five men - Ranjith Kumar, Arun Kumar, Yuvaraj, Ajithkumar and Sreenath and taken them to the Express Avenue mall for the inhumane practice of removing human excreta from the mall's septic tank. 

Ranjith Kumar first entered the tank and while he was cleaning the tank, he left unconscious due to the toxic and poisonous gases and by seeing Ranjith Kumar being stranded in the tank, his brother 25-year-old Arun Kumar who was one among the crew, immediately jumped into the tank to rescue Ranjith Kumar. After hopping in the tank, Arun Kumar somehow let Ranjith Kumar out of the tank but after getting affected by the toxic gases, Arun Kumar fainted and died. 

The Anna Salai police department, which is probing the case, has said that contractor Dhandapani, who allegedly taken five men to clean the septic tank, has been remanded under judicial custody and the authorities had asserted that they will include more names in the FIR with accord to the investigations. The reports stated that Dhandapani and the mall officials were booked under the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act 2013 and the atrocities against SC/ST Act.

It has been reported that the management of Express Avenue Mall has agreed to pay Rs 10 lakhs as exgratia for Arun Kumar's family. The sources have cited that of the total compensation, the mall has already released Rs 1 lakh and it will pay the remaining amount by Thursday. The investigative authorities had indicated that the family can avail additional compensation of Rs 8 lakh since the case has been registered against the SC/ST act and as per the act, the police asserted that the burden is now imposed on the contractor and the mall and they will be pronounced guilty until they prove their innocence in the court.

His death shockingly recalls the report released by the Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Ramdas Athwale in Lok Sabha last February on the total deaths in the country caused due to manual scavenging. The state of Tamil Nadu tops the table for recording about 144 deaths in the last five years from 2013 to 2018 while Uttar Pradesh ranked second with 71 deaths that had shown Tamil Nadu has been accounted for with double the number of deaths in Uttar Pradesh. Through tabling the reports, the minister had stated that the state government of Tamil Nadu had awarded ex gratia of Rs 10 lakh each to the families of the victims in 141 cases.