MUMBAI: A day after 55-year-old Aslam Shaikh was swept into an unguarded, 30-foot-deep open manhole and died in Sakinaka, the Sakinaka police on Friday registered an FIR against a civic contractor and three labourers engaged by him, holding them responsible for the fatal incident on Kherani Road in Andheri East.Police said the three labourers have been detained for questioning, while the contractor is absconding. A manhunt has been launched to trace him.The death came just days after the Bombay High Court pulled up the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) over manhole safety and called for measures to ensure such deaths do not recur. The incident also echoed in the Maharashtra Assembly, where Speaker Rahul Narwekar said merely suspending officials was no longer enough and called for those responsible to be booked for culpable homicide.Datta Nalawade, deputy commissioner of police (Zone 10), said CCTV footage from a hotel on Kherani Road showed the contractor and his labourers carrying out work on the manhole without installing barricades or warning signs, despite having opened it.The footage later captured Aslam Isak Shaikh, 55, a resident of Yadav Nagar in Sakinaka, walking along the stretch before disappearing from the view of another CCTV camera located further ahead, indicating that he had fallen into the open manhole.Police said Shaikh was on his way to work and was talking on his mobile phone moments before he slipped into the uncovered manhole. Civic officials, however, clarified that the contractor and his workers had only just begun work on the manhole when Shaikh accidentally fell into it while passing by. Nalawade said more people could be added as accused as the investigation progresses.The FIR has been registered under sections 106(1) (causing death by a rash or negligent act not amounting to culpable homicide) and 3(5) (common intention) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.“We had initially registered an accidental death report, but converted it into an FIR after the ward officer of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation lodged a formal complaint against the contractor and three of his employees. Our investigation found that the contractor and the labourers failed to take adequate safety precautions before opening the manhole, leading to the death,” said a police officer from Sakinaka police station.