“We received a call around 10.45 am and rushed to the spot. Even though we could recognise the umbrella and slippers however, we couldn’t believe that he had fallen into the manhole. Later, a manager of a nearby hotel showed me their CCTV footage and then we had to accept that it was my brother,” Aslam’s brother, Akbar (40) told the Indian Express.

Aslam was the sole breadearner of his family and worked as a daily wage worker. Every morning he would go to the Saki Naka post office where workers like him assembled in the morning. These workers are later taken by private contractors to work at construction sites. Like every day, Aslam reached the spot at 9 am in the morning and waited for his turn to be picked up. However, due to the heavy rainfall, the day’s work at the construction site where he was supposed to be taken, got cancelled and Aslam was walking back to his house at Yadav Nagar, when tragedy struck him.

Akbar said that everyday, Aslam would make an average of Rs 500-600 by carrying bricks, and manually transporting construction raw materials in hard carts. On some days, he would make Rs 1,000 which would mean a celebration for the family.

Aslam is survived by his wife, Anjum (50), daughter Shabnam (24) and son, Ali Akbar.

While Anjum is a housewife, Shabnam got married two years back, meanwhile Ali Akbar joined a private company two days back.

The family lives in a small one-room shanty tucked away in the narrow lanes of Yadav Nagar. Pointing to an wall of their home, Akbar said Aslam had been working to save enough money to repair the walls and roof to prevent water seepage during the monsoon.

“The body could only be found after three hours. After an hour passed and since we didn’t get any update, we started to think that my brother is no more,” Shaista Shaikh, Aslam’s sister and Rashid’s wife told Express.

“What’s scarier is that if my husband had not recognised the umbrella and slippers, no one would have been able to inform us and we would still be searching for him,” Shaista said.

Following the incident, Mumbai’s Mayor Ritu Tawde announced an ex-gratia of Rs 10 lakh for Aslam’s family. To which Shaista said that no amount of money can bring her brother back.

Akbar said that the possibility of why his brother couldn’t notice the manhole is because Aslam was visually impaired and used a high power lens.

“The road that he took was his usual route. How would he know if a manhole cover has been removed on a road which is bustling with vehicles during the day. The authorities should have barricaded it from four sides,” Akbar told Express.

Aslam’s friends and neighbours remember him as a complete family man. They say that even after crossing 50, Aslam was passionate about going to work.

“I saw him a few days back on the streets and congratulated him about his son getting a new job and told him that it’s time, you can relax a bit. To which he smiled and said that he will continue to work as he will be bored by sitting at home,” Hussain Shaikh a neighbour of Aslam’s told Express.