The lift halted due to the power cut. Within two-three minutes, the power was restored
In the hush of Bhopal's Royal Farm Villa Colony, silence now screams through the corridors of Flat No. 307. The warm lights that once lit up the Bhatanagar household have dimmed - replaced by a lone flickering diya, struggling to hold its flame. What unfolded on Monday night is not just a tragedy - it is a haunting reminder of how fragile life is when systems fail and emotions take over.
It was around 10 PM when strong winds swept across Hoshangabad Road, plunging the colony into darkness. Inside his home, 51-year-old Rishiraj Bhatanagar asked his younger son, 8-year-old Devansh, to take the lift back up to their flat. But moments after Devansh stepped inside, the power went out. The elevator halted. The boy was trapped.
"Papa... Papa..." the child screamed, his voice slicing through the gaps of the stalled lift.
What followed was a father's desperate race - heart pounding, feet thudding - up and down the stairs, toward the generator room. He tried to bring the system back online. Within three minutes, power was restored. The lift started. Devansh stepped out safely.
But by then, his father had collapsed.
The CPR attempt failed. Doctors at the hospital declared Rishiraj dead on arrival - killed not by accident, but by the unbearable weight of a father's panic.
Just that morning, his wife Parul had prayed under the sacred banyan tree for her husband's long life, observing the Vat Savitri fast. But by nightfall, the man she prayed for was gone. And for the second time in just three months, a heart attack had taken away a pillar of the family - Rishiraj's own father had passed away mid-sip of his evening tea, similarly.
Rishiraj was more than a family man. A property dealer and insurance consultant, he was the quiet force behind the colony's maintenance and everyday functioning. Known for taking on responsibility without complaint, he was the man people relied on-until the system he helped manage failed him. "He ran up and down, tried to start the generator... My sister gave him CPR, but it was too late," said Vivek Singh, a neighbor and witness. "There was a delay in generator backup. The panic was overwhelming. Even though we rushed him to the hospital, he couldn't be saved," said Brij Saxena, another society member.
Technical failure and delayed generator response now lie at the heart of the police inquiry. "Initial findings show the boy was stuck in the lift, and the father was trying to rescue him. During the attempt, he collapsed. Every angle is being investigated," said Manish Raj Bhadoria, the officer in charge at Misrod Police Station.
But in the colony, few want to speak now. There's a reluctance to admit fault, a nervous insistence that "there was no need to panic." But tell that to a father hearing his child cry out in fear. In those three minutes - those devastating, irreversible three minutes - a home was shattered.
Devansh, once afraid of the lift, now carries a scar that will never leave. And a community must reckon with a simple, painful truth: a life was lost, not in war or in disease, but in the everyday chaos of a failed backup and a father's unconditional love.
