Patna, Jun 1 (IANS): Two contract labourers associated with a private company lost their lives in a sewage drain in Patna on Monday. The colleagues of the deceased workers claimed that the due died of poisonous gas in the sewer.

A project under the 'Namami Gange' programme is being carried out by a private company in the Beur locality in Patna. The two labourers had entered a drain to construct concrete chambers.

The deceased persons have been identified as Mohamad Idrish and Mohamad Iqbal, both natives of the Murshidabad district in West Bengal.

The fellow workers claimed that Idrish and Iqbal probably got trapped in the drain and died of toxic gas.

Following the unfortunate incident, all the labourers fled from the construction site before informing the local police about the incident.

"We rushed to the spot as soon as we came to know of the incident. The deceased persons were lying in the drain. We retrieved their bodies using an earthmover machine (JCB)," said Manish Kumar, the SHO of Beur police station.

The officer also said that the safety measures pertaining to the construction work and cleaning of the drain were lacking at the site. Moreover, when the bodies were retrieved from the drain, none of the other employees or the project manager came to the spot.

"We have sent the bodies to AIIMS Patna for post-mortem. Further investigation is underway," Kumar said.