Noida: A 40-year-old man and his 11-year-old son died after allegedly falling from the balcony of their 23rd-floor apartment in Mahagun Mywoods in Greater Noida West on Friday morning.Randeep Patra, a section officer at Central Secretariat in Delhi, and his son Aarava, a Class 6 student, were scheduled to visit Khatu Shyam temple early in the morning. Before leaving, the father and son went to the balcony to pluck flowers from a climber for worship. Police said Aarav slipped as he climbed the railings to pluck flowers, which left him hanging from the balcony. To save his son, Randeep tried to grab his hand and pull him back up. However, he too slipped, and both fell onto the clubhouse roof below, which is at the level of the second floor of Tower 23.Randeep’s wife, Amrita Srimani, also a section officer at Central Secretariat, who was inside getting ready for the trip to Rajasthan, heard them screaming and rushed out to find them lying on the clubhouse roof. The two were taken to a nearby hospital, where doctors declared them dead.The family, which hails from West Bengal, usually plucked aparajita flowers that grew near a corner of the flat’s balcony and on the wall above it for rituals every morning.DCP (Central Noida) Praveen Ranjan Singh said police were alerted on Dial 112 around 4.20 am. Both the bodies were sent for autopsy and inquest proceedings.Amrita told cops that the family had purchased a plot at Khatu Shyam in Rajasthan and had a car waiting to drive to the temple before completing the property’s registration that morning. The father and son were ready for the trip and were to perform puja before leaving the apartment.Aarava was the couple’s only child. Neighbours said the incident had left the family devastated. No police complaint has been filed in the case yet.The incident came days after an 11-year-old boy died after falling from the 17th floor of Hyde Park in Sector 78 on Aug 27. The child was standing on the balcony when he saw some friends playing below and began talking to them. He allegedly lost his balance as he bent over and fell. On May 19, a four-year-old boy accompanying his mother, a domestic worker, slipped through an uncovered 15th-floor window at Lohia Enclave in Omicron 1 and died.Earlier, on March 14, 2024, a Class XII student allegedly slipped on water while watering plants, fell over the railing of her 18th-floor balcony and died. In Oct that year, a 10-year-old boy at Lotus 300, Sector 107, apparently climbed onto the 13th-floor balcony railing while playing in his parents’ absence, toppled over and died.Under UP Building Construction and Development Bylaws, 2008, parapet walls and handrails along balcony edges must be at least 1 metre high and cannot exceed 1.5 metres, with highrise buildings permitted parapet walls up to 1.8 metres. National Building Code of India, 2016, specifies minimum balcony barrier heights of 1.1 metres up to the 20th floor and 1.2 metres from the 21st floor onwards. However, nothing prevents a developer from raising the height, but decisions are based on design specifications and aesthetics.
