Bangalore:
Watchman Deependra at Sairam Sandhya Apartments in JP Nagar will never forgive himself. He could not prevent his three-and-half-year-old child Lakshmi from dying after getting crushed in the apartment lift on Sunday night, almost in front of his eyes.
Deependra had kept a near-perfect vigil at the five-storied apartments during his eight-year stint, but when it came to protecting his own child, he failed.
The inconsolable father recalls the nightmare: "It was around 8.30pm. I was washing a car in the stilts and Lakshmi was playing right next to me. Then she got into the lift and closed the door and began to go up. All of a sudden, I heard a heart-rending scream. I didn't suspect it could be my own daughter who was trapped in the lift. She might have tried to open the door without waiting for the lift to stop and got stuck in the lift. She hit her head in the lift door and suffered severe injuries."
Lakshmi was rushed to Dr Rajsekhar Hospital but doctors declared her 'brought dead'. The post-mortem was done at the KIMS Hospital on Monday.
The police said Lakshmi sustained head injuries. Internal bleeding in chest and abdomen, too, would have contributed to her death, sources added.
Deependra has two other daughters but says nothing can replace the bubbly Lakshmi in his life.
Six-year-old Manasi, a first standard student at Modern School in Sarakki, is still in a state of shock after her younger sister, who was a lower kindergarten student at the same school, died screaming for help in the lift.
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